Flowers and Blood
by Amaya130
Summary: Madara vomits flowers and blood into the drawer of his desk one day after Hashirama's inauguration ceremony. One-sided Uchiha Madara/Senju Hashirama, Hashirama/Mito, Hanahaki Disease, Angst, one-sided love
1. Chapter 1 : Rooting

**A/N: **I was on a Hanahaki disease reading binge because I obviously love pain and suffering. And I got a little inspired because while it's romantic and amazing when it's cured in the last moment by returned love. I (an angsty mcangster) love me some unrequited love.

**Rooting**

* * *

Madara vomits flowers and blood into the drawer of his desk one day after Hashirama's inauguration ceremony. He stares at the sodden mess of petals, stained with the blood scraped from his raw throat. His mangekyou spirals open in his eyes, Izuna peering out at the mess Madara is making of what remains of his miserable life.

**(what's this, brother? flowers for me?)** A weight settles over his shoulders, dragging him down.

No.

The tickling in his throat has been there for days, an illness he'd dismissed as fleeting. It must've been the petals in his throat.

The heaviness in his chest, the aching pain as Mito crowned Hashirama in the robes and hat of the Hokage's office, was it all the growing roots in his lungs?

He should be furious that he knows _who _these flowers are for without a moment of consideration. Instead he's gutted. _Hashirama_, he thinks, and knows now that the emotion clenching his heart is love.

**(filthy Senju) **A breath against his ear, a whisper. Madara's hands tremble, his eyes flickering, red, black, red, black.

Reciprocation. Surgery. Death.

Three options, two he's already dismissing out of hand. Hashirama and Mito are disgustingly happy together. Love and affection oozes from every look, every brushing touch, every smile.

Hashirama had confessed weeks ago, drunk on celebratory wine, that they were _trying_. Now that there was Konoha, now that the next generation could grow up safe. Perhaps even now Mito is fulfilling both of their dreams.

**(another child for slaughter)**

The weight presses, curving his spin, his eyes flicker again, blood trails tracking down his cheeks. Dripping, drop by drop to his lap.

Reciprocation is unfathomable, and death impossible.

He is the head of the Uchiha clan, no matter how unwelcome, **(unwelcome by traitors and unbelievers!) **and a founder of this village. He believes in the vision Hashirama and he had dreamed up as boys playing on the river's bed. There will be no death for him, not from this flowering in his lungs.

**(no a warrior's death, Senju flesh beneath our teeth)**

Surgery…

He coughs again, gagging until a flower slides from his blood stained mouth into his hand. The petals are funnel shaped with five separate sections, the yellow color wet and spotted with blood. It's crumpled from traveling up his throat, ripped and broken.

It's beautiful.

**(disgusting)**

He crushes the blossom in his fist, squeezing until only a pulpy mess is left. Then he sets it and the mess in his drawer on fire.

* * *

The fire incident as it's called later, gets blown out of proportion. As the villagers latch on to the newest bit of gossip, they twist what happened until it's unrecognizable.

Frantic intelligence division shinobi rush into his office at the flare of chakra and the smell of burning things, ready for battle. But there's only Madara standing over a burning drawer, blood tracks down his cheeks. He tells them that he is disposing of some sensitive documents. They carefully don't remind him that rules about document disposal were implemented last week. They don't remark about the bloody tears down his face.

Somehow the entire village knows both details by the end of the day. Crazy, they whisper, unbalanced and dangerous. Madara ignores it all.

He feels it constantly now. The heaviness of this sickness in his lungs, crawling up his throat.

There's only petals and leaves for now, but it's only a matter of time before he'll be sick enough others will notice. It's a matter of time.

**(fools and kunai fodder) **

For two days, he ignores it, escaping to privacy whenever the coughing becomes too difficult to ignore. He burns the evidence on the top of the mountain, hidden in the trees.

The carving of Hashirama's face has begun, some poor civilian up on mokuton grown scaffolding chipping away at the nose. The sun is setting over the spreading forest of behemoth trees, mokuton grown and strong, which blocks it's rays with wide branches. He kneels in the damp foliage, knees pressing into the dirt as he heaves into the burnt pit of ashes.

The flowers aren't the same colors, the petals all different shades from red to purple to yellow. But the shape is always the same, like a whirlpool or a funnel. The inconsistency bothers him.

The ache in his heart because he hasn't seen Hashirama these last few days bothers him more.

**(burn the weakness out) **The hissing voice insists. He flickers off the mangekyou and the voice fades away. He rubs tiredly at his eyes, and coughs.

There's still something in his throat, so he retches again and again until it comes up. Cold sweat beading on his forehead with the effort.

The next flower is a pretty thing, deep red on the inside fading to white on the edges. This one is a full bud, not crumbled pieces. He cradles it in one hand, calloused and scarred for as long as he can remember.

The ones in the burning pit are yellow and purple. What sort of flower is this? He makes a one handed tiger seal and sets the pit aflame, the red and white blossom still cradled in his other hand.

He doesn't burn it.

The red and pink sunset winks out over the tree-top and the village and the mountain top plunge into darkness. He activates his brother's mangekyou eyes and turns to look out over the village. The Hokage tower is still bustling with shinobi, but Madara's too tired to tolerate the security checks and suspicious eyes.

He turns towards the Uchiha district instead, he has a stone tablet to study.

* * *

The Yamanaka clan has made their place far away from the main part of the village, separated except for a well trod footpath. Hashirama had been against it, but Tobirama, the Senju bastard, had kicked him until he signed the paperwork.

It's a blessing to Madara now, to slip between the trees and knock softly against Yamanaka Ito's door in the early morning light. His bones are aching from spending a night beneath the Naka shrine pouring over his ancestor's stone tablet. His chakra is thin from the strain of keeping his body from being wracked by coughs, and having his mangekyou sharingan activated all night.

And the whispers that come whenever he uses his brother's eyes. He rubs at his eyes as he leans against the house, mokuton grown like all the first structures grown in Konoha. Reminders of Hashirama everywhere.

His sensor abilities may pale compared to Senju Tobirama, but he can sense someone within a few meters. Yamanaka Ito's chakra is tranquil and unmoving, but awake and ignoring him.

"Yamanaka, open this fucking door or I'll kick it down," he snarls after full seconds pass without the other's chakra twitching.

The door grudgingly swings open, a gust of wind blowing past his face. Chakra wasted on pettiness, if Madara was their clan head he'd train them hard enough they'd wish for death. But Ito does as they please, and the Yamanaka clan head let's them.

Ito's an exotic beauty to the Uchiha eye with wheat blond hair, and purple eyes with no pupil. They have a face like a fox, sharp and thin with a wicked tilt to their mouth. Yamanaka tend towards androgynous beauty, but Ito goes a step further and refuses any labels meant to confine them.

Also, unlike the rest of the Yamanaka clan, Ito possesses the rare quality of minding their own business and not indulging in gossip.

Something Madara now finds in short supply when everywhere he goes whispers follow him. Both in and outside of his own head.

"You never write, you never visit," Ito drawls, "so to what do I owe this...pleasure?"

They're sprawled over the floor, scroll unfurled in their lap, a pot of tea half empty on the low table. There's so many cushions that Madara guesses Ito sleeps there more days than not. It looks warm and comfortable.

He hasn't slept a full night in days.

The tablet is a welcome distraction from the problems of his life, giving him a problem to decipher. But he can barely focus on the engraved words when thoughts of Hashirama strangle him. Literally and figuratively these last few days.

Madara stands rootless in the entryway, while the disease in his lungs strangles him. He coughs into one hand, the tangy taste of blood welling up in his throat. Bone deep exhaustion starts to well, but he pushes it away. He doesn't have time anymore.

The flower bud that brought him here is cradled in his other hand, rinsed clean and still damp.

Ito stills, finally looking at him, taking in the pallor of his skin, his dry and cracking lips. Throwing up constantly is putting a strain on Madara's body that not even chakra reinforcing can fix. He's lasting longer than a civilian would at least, the illness takes them in a few weeks. Madara supposes he'll last a month or more.

"Are you sick?" they ask sharply, setting aside the scroll.

Madara huffs, one handedly unbuckling his armor and peeling off his sandals to step inside.

Ito's got that look in their eyes that spells trouble for those around them, focused and sharp. Though Madara has come just to know the name of the flowers, he has a feeling he won't be leaving without telling them everything.

But Ito's… trustworthy.

"I'm sick."

It's a relief to say it, and Madara's shoulders loosen, just a bit. He settles down at the kotatsu Ito hasn't removed, even though it's spring and winter has long since past. The Yamanaka is always cold and sneaking his fingers into the cracks of Madara's armor. Madara is a furnace, according to various sources.

"Do you need medicine? Cold, flu, damned pox, what is it?" they grumble, sitting up from their lazy sprawl.

There's a tower of scrolls balancing on the table that Madara eyes warily, but he sets the flower down.

It's still pristine, and Ito gets distracted by studying the curve and coloring carefully.

"For me? You shouldn't have," they say, fingers touching the soft petals, "but be glad I know you're incompetent outside of your special eyes. Otherwise the meaning would disturb me. "

Madara twitches, clenching his fists on his folded legs so he doesn't snatch the flower from Ito's hands. It looks wrong beneath those fingers, pale where they should be tan, elegant where they should be blunt. He grits his teeth and glances away.

Wrong.

It's his emotions spilled over this table, the throbbing ache in his heart given a name and a meaning that he doesn't understand.

"Fuck you," he says, several seconds late. The words aren't nearly harsh enough, it's not the way they banter.

Ito looks at him, the weight of their gaze heavy on his shoulders. Penetrating and capable of reading minds even without using their kekkei genkai, which drives Madara to rages in the council room and to quiet despair with Ito.

"What's going on Madara?"

Madara doesn't shift uncomfortably, he's trained better than that. But Ito's sharp eyes bore through him, catching every shift of his expression. Fucking Yamanaka.

"Hanahaki disease," he grits out. His teeth clench tight enough to send pain shooting down his jaw. His throat clenches tight around the buds creeping up his throat.

He needs to cough again.

The room is silent, Madara turns his face towards the window. He can't face what the Yamanaka will say and doesn't want to know what the flowers say about him, about his… feelings.

"When?" Ito whispers, "Who is it, Madara?" His voice cracks, shocked and horrified.

He should be, Madara thinks, it's horrific. Painfully, soul wrenching, worth it.

Reciprocation, surgery, death. If only he wasn't the Uchiha clan head, co-founder of a village he both loves and hates, a thrall to the vision Hashirama and him built from the blood and ashes of their families.

The only option is surgery, but he almost can't bear to carve the sweet ache when he sees Hashirama out of him. The flower of his heart, the only good thing left for him, about him, cut out of his lungs.

He looks at Ito, their face is pale and drawn tight, their fists white knuckled.

"Two days," he says, and the flowers tickle at the back of his throat.

The urge to heave is impossible to ignore, and there's nothing more to hide. He covers his mouth as he hacks, dry heaving again and again until the flowers slide into his palms. Blood drips from his hand and lips, and his raspy breaths fill the room.

The flowers drop from his hand with a plop, mushed together with blood and saliva from being in his lungs.

Ito's breath hitches in their lungs, and Madara can't help but look at them. He's never seen the Yamanaka so shocked, but the obvious evidence of his disease has shaken them.

Their eyes lock on the mess, and Madara feels a bit bad when a trickle of blood touches the edge of a scroll. He uses his clean hand to move the paper off the table, away from the mess.

An old abandoned tea cup is on the floor, the dredges from yesterday's drink still inside. Madara's too tired and dehydrated to care. The taste of blood and pollen is so heavy on his tongue he doesn't remember how his mouth normally tastes. He downs the cold tea, swishing it in his mouth before swallowing. He refills from the pot on the table, steam rising from the cup.

The taste of his folly is still heavy on his tongue, but Madara hasn't escaped his failures since the day he met Hashirama on the edge of the Naka river.

"Heathen," Ito says, one trembling hand grasping their own cup. "Why are you here, Madara? Confess to the woman and be free of it."

A woman…ha. Madara snorts, setting the cup down. With his blood stained hand he reaches out, stroking his thumb over the intact bud.

"It's no woman," he says, implacable, grim. No woman to continue his line, no treaty to create a union of families. No purpose, no future. Surrogacy is common enough, and profitable for the person that takes the mission. But Hashirama and Mito are in love… there's no room for a spare.

"A man?" Ito blurts, cup slamming onto the table top. Tea sloshes out to join the mess of blood and pulp.

"A man," Madara agrees, wryly, "and married."

Ito's face flickers through various expressions, lips tight, brow furrowed. Madara sees the names being ticked off down a list of married men that Madara could love. That it takes Ito even a few seconds to realize it's their new Hokage is mystifying since Madara's list has one name.

It's gratifying how much they care, that his affliction affects them so deeply.

Perhaps… he even has a friend that's not his brother or Hashirama. A bond not marred by rivalry and death, and this unfortunate disease.

Ito releases a slow breath, brow smoothing and shoulders slumping as the name comes to him.

"You fool."

"I don't disagree. I am a fool."

Neither of them speak, the silence stretching around them.

"Why tell me?" Ito asks, filling both their cups with tea.

Steam rises up, kept hot by the imported Uzumaki made teapot. Everywhere, Mito's heritage supports Hashirama's dream. Their dream now, Madara supposes. In the months since Hashirama offered Madara his life and turned him from vengeance, the village has grown large on the river where they'd first met and dreamed of a future where children didn't have to die.

Now, Hashirama and Mito will fulfill this dream with their own children. The Senju bastard is making a school, and building the government; creating something from Hashirama's wild fantasies.

What does Madara have to offer? A strong right arm, loathed and distrusted?

Ha.

"I don't know what flower it is," he says finally. And your the only one that seeks me out, aside from Hashirama, he doesn't add.

Ito snorts. "And you couldn't find a book? No, nevermind." They shake their head. "Why read when you can bother me, I suppose." Their voice is rough, before Madara would have said with annoyance, but now he can recognize it as fear.

Fear for Madara, how novel.

Ito picks up the flower bud, rolling it between their fingers, mouth pursed in thought. "It's a petunia, native to the Lightning country and popular because they come in various colors." They reach over and set the bud on Madara's open palm. It's small and delicate, Madara can't believe his body made it.

"Its meaning is three fold," Ito says softly, touching the petals, "resentment, anger, and," they clear their throat, "your presence soothes me."

Madara stares at the red and white of the flower's petals, off kilter and numb. A fitting flower for a friendship he's distorted with his feelings. His voice is hoarse and rusty from the disease but he laughs, and laughs until his lungs ache, and he wheezes and coughs instead.

He clenches his fist, crushing the perfect flower between his fingers. Ito looks at him, silent, their eyes clear and watchful. They don't say anything even as the pulp squishes out from between Madara's fingers.

"I need a medic-nin, one that won't go running to our new leader," Madara says, his lungs aching and throbbing with pain. Or is it his heart?

It doesn't matter at this point, this sickness will be carved from his chest soon enough. What will he even feel anymore once this sickness is gone? Once he can think of Hashirama without the bitterness of lost dreams, and the ache of this yearning.

Will he have anything left? Will he feel _anything_?

"A medic-nin?" Ito asks.

"I'm taking the surgery. I'll carve it out."

Silence. Madara looks up at Ito. They glance away with a grimace and Madara realizes his sharingan is on. He hadn't realized because Izuna's voice was quiet. He takes a drink from his tea and shifts his eyes back to black.

Ito finally says, "The surgery is dangerous and mostly untested. Most die from the shock or kill themselves afterwards. Madara… only the desperate go through with it."

Madara laughs. He has flowers in his lungs, what other option does he have?

"I am desperate."

* * *

**A/N: ** This is my secondary story that I'm writing, so it'll be updated after my main one. This chapter took me about a month? But I have a bunch of the next chapter already written, so this will probably update by the end of February. More sadness incoming! And Hashirama will finally show up, yay!


	2. Chapter 2 : Budding

**A/N**: This whole story was supposed to be a short 4 thousand word character study but multiple chapters happened to me instead ahhahaha. Help me…

**Budding**

The sun is high in the sky when Madara leaves Ito's house. They'd broken into Ito's alcohol supply, demolishing several bottles of sake until even their constitutions gave into intoxication.

His eyes ache with the influx of light, as he squints into the morning sun. There's a bag of medicine tucked into his robes to soothe his throat, which is the most Ito can do for him. They've promised to track down a medic-nin with experience to do the surgery, but that it might take some weeks. More likely months.

It's the best they can expect, but Ito cautioned him to refrain from as many taxing actions as possible and to keep his chakra circulating in his lungs to try to stifle the roots from growing. It doesn't seem to be helping much, the roots an actual part of his body, not some foreign contaminant to be flushed out.

He's already noticed a decrease in basic lung capacity by simply moving, each breath shallower and quicker than before. It's a dangerous condition when his katon jutsu relies so heavily on how well and how much he can breath.

He needs to stay away from Hashirama, the man is an accomplished medic-nin himself and bound to notice Madara isn't quite right. He's been lucky to avoid the man these last few days, but his luck is bound to run out.

It's easier said than done however, a fact which proves itself the moment he steps into the bustle of the village. The lunch crowd, civilians and shinobi alike, parts before him like he's launched a fireball jutsu down the length of the street.

He's hungry, but it's too much trouble to eat at a stall or restaurant when the other customers leave, and the owners resent him as much as they fear him. He's about to turn back to the forest and catch a rabbit to roast when a deep voice calls out to him.

"Madara!"

He can't help but turn towards that voice, heart stuttering and leaping like a flame in his heart. Three days. He's avoided Hashirama for that long, but it seems his time's run out.

Hashirama strides down the road, flanked by his brother and the heads of the major clans. The Inuzuka matriarch, the Aki-Yama-Nara alliance, one Aburame leader (the brother this time), and finally that fucking Hyuuga head. All of them decked out in clan colors and symbols, but bearing the Konoha crest on their headbands.

There's someone new, another shock of white hair besides Tobirama's amidst the browns, blacks and blondes. At the person's side is a huge wolf, even larger than Inuzuka's mutt, ears twitching and huge head scouting out the village.

Ah, the current Hatake alpha, Madara remembers, there's a meeting today to invite them to the village, a ceremony more than anything. It's already assumed the small, insular clan will join. Wolves are pack animals after all.

The alpha is a woman from a brief look, almost of a height with the Senju brothers, short haired and sloe eyed, decked in leather and furs with an impressive musculature. Taijutsu fighter perhaps, or a weapon user. The wolf's shoulders come up to the woman's hip, with dark brown fur down it's face and back and a white belly. In another situation, Madara would challenge the woman to a spar once her pack joined. Fighting against a Taijutsu user was always exhilarating, and animals made the sharingan far less effective.

An impressive duo, and a strong addition to Konoha's ranks.

He inclines his head towards the woman, keeping his eyes on her as a sign of respect. "Welcome to Konoha, Hatake-san," he says. He inclines his head to the wolf as well, careful to not show his throat. He's learned the annoying way that while animal companions don't mind being ignored, their partners often take offense.

"Thank you, Uchiha-san. I am Hatake Natsuko. We expect these talks will bring good hunting. "

A strange turn of phrase, but the Hatake had roots in the lands of Iron, some rumors even whispered they have Samurai blood. He settles on a noncommittal hum, and doesn't twitch when Inuzuka Ashi leans in to whisper a snide phrase to the Yamanaka head.

The Inuzuka have never gotten along with the Uchiha, they were a bunch of feral dogs, fighting over scraps and useless slights.

Hashirama ignores the tension in the air, and grabs Madara by the arm, dragging Madara close to him. Madara stiffens, for the first time unsure how to react to Hashirama's touch. How did he act before he knew what these feelings meant?

He can't remember.

"Madara, it's been forever! I missed your scowly face these last few days, where have you been?"

The other man's body is warm and solid next to him, taller by a few inches (and doesn't that annoy), but less broad in the chest and shoulders than Madara. He's strong and handsome, and his smile brings light into Madara's heart. What's left of it.

"Let's get on with it," Tobirama, the wretch, interrupts with a scowl.

Hashirama laughs and agrees, letting Madara out of his arm and leading their group to the newly erected Hokage tower. Madara shivers, brushing his palm over his chest where the roots rustle and grow inside of him. But he doesn't cough, today's a better day than yesterday.

Hashirama's office is more like a greenhouse than an office, potted plants lining the bookshelves and walls making a forest of greenery and humidity. Madara spares a thought for the poor assistants battling an early onset of mold. As they all walk inside, the branches and flowers of the plants lean towards Hashirama like he's the sun, the water and the earth that nourishes them.

It's uncanny, when the man himself exerts no chakra, and doesn't notice it happening.

Everyone settles down, standing or sitting at various points of the room. Hashirama is in the Hokage's seat, with Tobirama and Madara at his shoulders. The Hatake stands tall and steady in the middle of the room, her wolf at her side.

She surveys them with cool eyes and says, "The Hatake pack accepts the Shodaime's offer of alliance and a permanent place in the village of Konohagakure."

Hashirama smiles broadly, the corners of his eyes creasing with pleasure. "We of Konoha welcome the Hatake pack gladly!" he pronounces, leaping to his feet and going forward to clasp arms with the woman. Madara hears Tobirama snort next to him, grumbling about decorum and treaties.

The sunlight is slanting through the windows, the room dancing with dust motes as the Hokage and clan heads convene at the meeting table. It's a rough outline of a governmental system, the Hokage, his advisors, and the clan heads. Madara eyes them all, a distant and undesired advisor. The future of the village, a meeting of equals before their benevolent leader.

Hashirama is their guiding light, the great tree whose branches support and shelter them.

Madara wonders where his place is here.

The other clan heads wait for him to stumble, to fall from his place at Hashirama's left hand so they can claw at his robes and drag him under into the depths of their miring pit.

His own clan elders are peers of his grandmother, clan head of her time, and they tire of him. Clan meetings are embittering enough he almost thinks of begetting an heir to eventually take his place. But he'll burden no unwilling woman or girl barely into adulthood with his advances. In the Uchiha clan all avoid his gaze. And the village is worse, they call him a demon.

He is only a token leader, kept on his empty throne by the grace of Hashirama's affection, and plotted against by those wanting Hashirama's good will, and those planning to set his cousin Uchiha Ikaru in his place. It's been made clear he's not welcome in the village or the Uchiha district.

His office has a couch long enough only his feet dangle off when he needs to sleep, and it's within chakra sensing distance of Hashirama's home. Most nights he spends there, or with the stone tablet of his ancestors, uncovering the murky history of his clan's past.

It's enough… enough for now.

"Madara?" Hashirama's voice breaks through his musings, and he focuses back on the meeting with a restrained twitch.

The other clan heads are chatting with the newest addition to the village. Hatake Natsuko and her dire wolf lounge in an armchair, all droopy eyes and wicked teeth. Izuna would have been enamored of her, he always liked a powerful woman, but it's too late for that now. Izuna's dead… gone.

His brother's killer has pulled up the Hokage's chair next to Hatake, speaking softly with the woman. There's a careful distance being maintained between Aburame and Inuzuka who sit on either side of the Aki-Yama-Nara trio. The Hyuuga is in another armchair, listening to Tobirama and Hatake speak to each other.

The Akimichi, Yamanaka and Nara are clustered together on the same couch, sprawled over each other. It's an open secret the three of them are together sexually if not romantically, despite being married to others. Madara has never felt as much scornful jealousy over it as he does right now.

Hashirama is leaning into him, their shoulders bumping together, and the man's scent, tree sap and damp earth, fills his nose. He swallows roughly, eyes flashing red to capture the other man's face, imprinting the feeling, the smell, the clenching in his chest, into another captured moment.

**(broth-)**

The voice rises and falls, the twisted remnants of Izuna's presence whispering into his ears as he activates their eyes.

But Izuna is dead.

"Madara, hey." Hashirama wraps his arm over Madara's shoulder, clasping him into a side hug. "You there?" His voice is low and husky, his breath hot against Madara's ear.

Too close.

"Off, you mongrel," Madara grumbles, pushing that stupid, smiling face away from him.

Hashirama goes easily, laughing as he drags Madara into the circle of Clan Heads. The Aburame removes himself from Madara's side, and settles next to Inuzuka. Even clans with decades long feuds barely patched over prefer the one they know to the mad Uchiha Clan Head. Madara's not bitter, after all the snubbing is practically a ritual now.

Hashirama squeezes his shoulder, and stays a solid, reassuring presence next to him as they all discuss recent news, debate legislature and complain about having to share resources.

Madara stays silent. He knows when he's wanted, and there's no use offering his thoughts when all he receives is dismissal and scorn. He used to rage, to shout, to swear. Might makes right, but he's only one man against a united front. The other clan heads and Senju Tobirama band together against him during meetings, and Hashirama is in a delicate position.

Madara has learned to hold his tongue.

The discussion meanders on, from clan borders, to village borders, to whether random civilians not related to any clans or shinobi should be barred from settling down. The clan heads talk and talk and talk, uselessly because Madara knows the look on Hashirama's face.

He's smiling and nodding, but he's already made a decision, and is already planning how to soothe them into doing things his way.

Madara has no doubts he'll be successful.

The last topic is finished, and everyone looks satisfied. Hashirama ushers them out the door, but holds his brother and Madara back.

The doors close behind the last of the clan heads as they leave for their duties, and Hashirama reactivates the privacy seals, before turning around. His solemn face breaks into a beaming smile, the whites of his teeth almost reflecting light like some bizarre genjutsu.

"I have great news."

Tobirama blatantly ignores him, as he settles down at the Hokage's desk, sorting through documents and signing the dotted lines in Hashirama's handwriting. Most of the Hokage's paperwork is cleared by his hands as Hashirama patrols the village, helping settle disputes and build houses like a commoner. It's one aspect of the job that makes Madara glad he dodged the kunai.

"News?" Madara prompts, as Hashirama paces in the middle of the room. There's an uncontained, vibrant energy around him, like he can't contain his happiness.

"Mito's pregnant!"

...pregnant?

"How far along?" Tobirama asks. He's standing, paperwork abandoned, his stern face breaking into a broad smile.

Madara feels numb, like the floor beneath his feet has fallen away, the sound of his heartbeat thrums in his ears, muffling the outside world.

"Five months." Hashirama is glowing with happiness.

Tobirama frowns. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"I didn't know! Mito kept it a secret. She told me when she put the hat on me." He runs his fingers over the rim of the ridiculous Hokage's hat, smile softening. His eyes...they're so tender, so fond.

"That's why you were such a fool after your speech, I thought the applause had gone to your head." But Tobirama is still smiling, his hand on Hashirama's shoulder. "Congratulations, brother."

They pull each other into a bear hug, Hashirama slapping his back and laughing while Tobirama holds him tight.

What is this…this separation. As close as brothers, Hashirama says, his dearest friend. What brothers, what friend. Madara can't lie to himself, he's envious of Mito and Tobirama. If he could be first in Hashirama's heart as a brother or a lover, what joy that would be.

But he's second best. Always second.

"Congratulations." His voice comes from far away, like he's hearing it underwater. Hashirama turns to him, his smile still a warm, soft thing.

"Thanks, Ma-chan."

"Don't call me that ridiculous name." He's coming back to himself, the shock sliding off.

"I'll name them after you! And don't be upset Tobirama, you can have the next one."

"The next one? Already planning that are you." Tobirama laughs. "Subjecting the village to one of your spawns?"

"Be grateful I'm going to name one after you at all!" Hashirama slaps Tobirama's back again, smiling, laughing. "You've given me so much trouble, and I'll be cursed with a child just like you!"

He's happy.

The brother's squabble, and in this moment Madara can only be glad that they revolve around each other so he can take a moment to compose himself.

There will be time to choke this down later, but for now bear it. Bear it…

"You'll be even more insufferable now, I suppose," he drawls. The great roiling waves of the dark sea he'd seen in the north during his youth has taken up residence in his body, the flowers in his lungs like lightning strikes reaching deep into the depths of him. Hashirama is the sun sending faint rays through the boiling clouds, the cleansing rain.

Ahh, Izuna would have called him a dramatic fool if he could hear Madara's thoughts now. Too romantic, too sentimental, too hot-headed and too sensitive.

Izuna had always been the pragmatic one, the realistic one.

"You're just jealous!" Hashirama laughs.

"Hardly."

Perhaps his tone was too short or the expression on his face too twisted, but Hashirama looks at him with confusion twisting his brows.

"Madara, what's wro-?"

"Hokage-sama!" There's a knock on the door, the speaker's voice is still young and squeaky with puberty.

Hashirama pauses and glances towards the office door. After a moment, he sighs and throws on the Hokage's hat and robes, settling behind the desk and folding his hands beneath his chin.

"Enter."

A young shinobi opens the door with a message scroll in their hands. Madara excuses himself, slipping out into the hallway and ignoring the way the shinobi flinches from him as he passes.

Hashirama's voice follows him as he goes to his office, serious and deep. His chest aches, his throat convulses. His heart burns with longing, bleeding and raw.

He still loves him, loves him to the depths of Amaterasu's hellscape. Through fire and blood, despite his brother, despite it all. He loves him enough to let him go. To cut him out.

Hashirama, Hashirama…

**(he doesn't care about you he already has a brother you only have me me brother i'm here) **

His mangekyou flickers as his chakra fluctuates, pushing down the rustling in his lungs.

He stands in his office looking out the window at the village spread out beneath him and thinks, thinks of the man he loves.

And breathes.


	3. Chapter 3 : Flowering

A/N : Hope you like it!

**Flowering**

Everyday life doesn't cease because the man he loves doesn't have time for him. Instead it counts down, and each day Madara finds it harder and harder to breath. He's weak now, _weak_ and _useless_. What right arm, what rival, what brother? Hashirama would wipe the training ground with him as he is now, crippled and wheezing like an invalid.

Even walking causes his breath to catch, so he spends less and less time being seen. But being seen and not being seen, they both have consequences. It's a statement, one he doesn't want to make, but that he must.

And so the whispers in the village grow. Of how he's jealous and plotting, creeping and sabotaging the Hokage under the mask of friendship. If only they could see how Madara sleeps on the too short couch in his office, and steals into the Uchiha compound to decode the message on the stone his ancestors left him.

He sees Hashirama at council meetings, and slips away from his confused gaze and half formed words to the depths of the Naka shrine. The only person he speaks to now is Izuna who whispers in his head as he decodes the ancient stone of their ancestors.

His mangekyou is an aching, burning presence in his skull every morning after those fraught and sleepless nights.

Three months pass this way, with Ito bringing back rumors and locations of doctors that always lead to dead-ends. Inevitably, the person is a hack or dead already from the constant battles between clans that's reaching its peak outside the borders of Fire Country. It's what keeps Hashirama busy, sending out patrols and strengthening their expanding borders. Smaller clans shelter beneath him, new ones joining Konohagakure every week.

Madara doesn't have much time left… and he misses him.

Everyday without seeing Hashirama is like a stabbing, festering wound in his gut. But he can't see him, he can't. Hashirama knows him best, knows him well. Hashirama _loves_ him, Madara knows that, it's all that brought him here, to Konoha.

All that's held him together since Izuna was cut down in front of him. Since his last brother died slowly in pieces on his sick bed. And Madara ripped out his eyes.

He misses his brother everyday.

"Madara." There's a knock on his office door, and Madara jolts from his sprawled position on the couch. His chakra turns briefly from it's constant cycling in his lungs to check the person at the door. It sounds like Ito, but they aren't due back for another week.

The presence behind the door feels like the Yamanaka, but Madara's grasp on his chakra has been faltering lately, consumed by the very disease that it's repressing. Still his chakra can only do so much, and he's only human, despite what the villagers say.

He's dying.

"Come in," he says hoarsely, and doesn't bother to rise from his sprawl.

He's managed to nap for an hour without waking up with coughs and petals choking him, but it's not enough. He doesn't remember the last time he slept without waking up gasping for breath, black spots dancing in his vision. Weak.

Ito enters, dusty and travel worn from spending the last few months on the road with only brief stops in Konoha to report. Not that there's been much to report, each prospective doctor only ends in frustration.

"You look like shit," Ito tells him, dropping down on the other chair and sprawling out with a deep sigh.

"I'm dying," Madara says dryly, dragging his hands over his burning eyes.

"Excuses. We're all dying," Ito groans and tugs their hair free. It falls in clumps, the usual silky strands greasy and spotted with dirt, a far cry from the person Madara had trusted three months ago. The Yamanaka is running themselves ragged looking for someone with the skills to cure him.

"A month, maybe two." He knows his own body, and he's reached the limits of his strength and pushed past it already. With chakra, and careful management, he can keep himself alive for a while longer, but his body's already failing him.

Ito doesn't stir, but there's a new tension in the room, a heaviness.

"What information is so important that you came running back?"

Ito smiles as they lean forward and pull a scroll from their sleeve. "A lead. The best one we've gotten."

The scroll unravels, revealing a sketch of an older woman carefully put to paper. Madara reaches out and pulls down the bottom to read the mission details. They're scarce, just rumors and hearsay of a miracle doctor in the depths of river country that can magic the flowers from a person's lungs.

"The best?" If this is the best, Madara doesn't want to know the worst.

"Even Senju medic-nin won't risk the surgery without exhausting all other options," Ito says, rolling the scroll back up and tucking it away. "This woman though, I think she has a kekkei-genkai. It's the only way these rumors make sense."

"A kekkei-genkai," Madara says, slightly suspicious. That's almost too lucky.

"Supposedly," Ito agrees, "I'll know when I meet her. I came back for some supplies and funds, I've run out."

"Take the form from my desk and file it, my signature is already there." Madara flops his arm back over his eyes to block out the light and takes a deep rattling breath.

Ito stays seated for a few moments then rises and goes to the desk, filling out the form and heading to the door. They hesitate there, their hand on the doorknob like they want to say something. But in the end, they open the door and leave, the last sound of them the latch clicking into place.

Madara's alone again.

His arm lays heavy over his eyes, blocking out the light and pressing against the ridge of his brows. He's so tired. The world wavers around him like a genjutsu.

Nothing feels real. Nothing's felt real for months.

He wants to sleep more, sleep forever. His eyelids fall shut and he dozes in the warmth of the sunshine through the window. For a moment he's not bothered by pain. Peaceful.

"Ma-chan!" The door slams open, banging against the wall with a concerning thud. Madara jerks awake from his doze, heart thundering in his chest from the adrenaline rush.

"Great Sage, Hashirama," he groans. He rolls up on his couch, hands digging into his knees as he rolls the meat of his palms against his eyes.

"Were you sleeping?" Hashirama says, voice confused. "In the middle of the day?"

"Mhmm," Madara groans. He looks up at Hashirama with bleary eyes, still half asleep.

"At least pretend to do some work around here," Tobirama snips from behind Hashirama's back. All three of them glance at Madara's desk, empty except for his writing utensils.

"If only you would actually send the paperwork my job as the Jounin Commander allows me to do," Madara grouses, laying his head back against the couch.

Tobirama sulks, arms crossing as he snorts and turns away. As if all three of them don't know that he micromanages the paperwork crossing the Hokage's desk until not even Hashirama has to sign anything.

Hashirama sits down on the couch next to him, a slight frown creasing his forehead. "Do you have a fever? You look flushed." He reaches forward and presses the back of his hand against Madara's forehead.

"Stop fussing," Madara says roughly. Hashirama's hand feels nice and warm against his skin, but one sweep of medical chakra and nothing will hide what's happening to him. Hashirama may be a fool, but he's not stupid.

He'll know.

Madara pulls Hashirama's hand away, and stands up and walks to sit behind his desk. A few feet between them will be good for him, and keep Hashirama's sticky hands to himself.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, folding his hands beneath his chin and leaning on it. He feels shaky, his limbs slow, his lungs laboring to take in even a few breaths. How weak…how detestable.

Hashirama's face transforms into a beaming smile, and he leaps from the couch, pacing in front of Madara's desk. Madara can practically see the puppy dog tail wagging behind him, the man is so excited and eager.

"Tobirama and I have some time, so I thought we haven't had a spar in a while! And it's a beautiful day out." He pauses and looks and Madara expectantly, Madara looks back, waiting. "Come with us? It's been months since the last time."

A pout shouldn't look good on a grown man, but Hashirama lives to ruin Madara's life. Tobirama, with his arms crossed, makes a small noise of derision behind his brother. Hashirama glances backwards with a warning look, then turns the puppy eyes back on as he looks at Madara.

In another life, where Madara wasn't at less than half strength, he'd take this opportunity to thrash Tobirama in a sanctioned match. But this is not the time.

"Go play by yourselves, I have some things to do," Madara says, turning away from Hashirama's expectant gaze. His optimal lung capacity has plunged significantly, it would be sheer stupidity to spar at this time. Especially with Hashirama, his only equal, his friend. A medic-nin who's already suspicious of Madara's increased seclusion.

Where there's smoke, there's fire. Hashirama doesn't need any more reason to be worried, or distracted from the village...and his wife and their child.

He heads for his office door, not fleeing, he would never, but staging a tactical retreat. As he passes, Hashirama grabs him, holding him back with disgusting ease.

"Madara?"

His voice is so soft, so confused and imploring. The same as the day he came to Madara with the peace treaty, and Madara looked over his shoulder at Tobirama, at the man who killed Izuna, and said no.

He's weak to Hashirama, a fool, but he loved Izuna...he still _loves_ him. In the end, his revenge couldn't sustain him, his thirst for Tobirama's blood was slaked by Hashirama offering his own life. Revenge...isn't that what kept their families fighting on battlefields soaked with the blood of children?

He looks past Hashirama's shoulders at Tobirama's flat red eyes. Those counterfeit eyes…

"I'm fine, Hashirama, I just have some business with my clan," he says softly, laying his own hand over Hashirama's. Hashirama doesn't look reassured, in fact he looked more worried, and the last thing Madara needs is the busy-body looking into anything.

"Let's go out for drinks tonight instead? At the Blunt Kunai, after sunset?" he offers, tugging his arm away. Hashirama lets him go, gazing after him with a complicated expression Madara can't read. Even Tobirama is looking at him with something other than banked wariness, almost concerned.

It's unsettling.

"Drinks tonight, sure. See you there," Hashirama says. He sounds disappointed. In a moment of madness, Madara almost changes his mind. But he _can't_, it'd be a disaster. Hashirama can never know, never.

Madara gives a short nod and sweeps out the door. Eager for distance between him and them. The shrine is the only safe place left, the only place no one will bother or disturb him, where even Senju Hashirama can't go without clan tensions.

It's where he retreats now, desperate to pass the time by decoding the wisdom of his ancestors. He doesn't think of Hashirama when Izuna's phantom whispers in his ears.

* * *

Sunset comes too soon, the horizon stained with pink and orange before it winks out over the massive mokuton grown treetops and the village descends into murky darkness. The paper lanterns are lit by patrolling shinobi as they pass, like the stars blinking into existence. Civilians, who would usually go to bed with the sun, are still out and about, eating and drinking in the security the village has already bred.

The walk to the Blunt Kunai stirs old sentiment inside of him, the awe and satisfaction of having _made_ Konoha. Of having dreamt it to life.

He ignores the way civilians and shinobi alike avoid him, crossing the streets to stay off his path, the way their eyes catch and jerk away. The whispers.

The Blunt Kunai is mostly empty this early in the night with the sun barely set, and with Madara inside it'll probably stay that way. Not even Hashirama's presence could lure other's inside.

Hashirama is waiting for him at the front door, a group of civilians crowded around him. His smile is gentle and pleased as they chatter at him. Little insects.

"Hashirama," he says, and the civilians scatter like mice before a cat. Hashirama doesn't seem to notice as he turns that smile on Madara instead. Where it belongs.

"Madara, you're here!"

"I said I would be," Madara answers, pushing the bar door open.

"I know," Hashirama huffs, "but you've been hard to find lately. And you never reject spars! Are you sure you're feeling okay?" He moves forward as if to check Madara over.

"I'm fine, I just had some work," Madara says, moving past Hashirama and to the bar. "Sake for me, and a beer for Hokage-sama," he tells the bartender.

Hashirama scoffs. "Work never stopped you before! What's really going on? Did you meet someone?"

It's Madara's turn to scoff and give Hashirama an incredulous glance. That wasn't even worth replying too. Hashirama always was such a romantic, and nothing's changed since he got married. If anything, he's gotten _worse_.

"What?" Hashirama says, acting offended, but the slight curve of his lips betray his amusement. "You love sparring, if not love what else could keep you?"

"I'm not you, Hashirama," Madara sighs. The bartender sets their drinks down in front of them, and moves away to a table near the front, wiping it down.

He pours himself a cup of sake, and sips it. It's a good one, cool and soothing on his always sore throat. Hashirama takes a small sip of his beer and pulls a face.

"I don't know why you order that swill, you don't even like it," Madara says, taking another sip of his flavorful and delicious sake. Why Hashirama drinks watered down horse piss he'll never understand.

"I do like it… eventually," Hashirama argues back, taking a long drink. He grimaces through it, the idiot.

"Don't force yourself."

"Hey, I'm older than you! Stop giving me sass," Hashirama responds, smacking his shoulder softly.

"By two months," Madara laughs. This is an old argument, he can already hear Hashirama's response.

"Two months and one day," Hashirama says and Madara says it with him. It's worth it for the sulky pout Hashirama gives, and the way his cheeks puff up like mochi. Ahh...cute.

They fall into a familiar back and forth, drinking and talking as the night drags on. Hashirama sips slowly at his beer, and Madara motions for another. He's working steadily through his own glass of sake, but his eyes are constantly catching on Hashirama. On the curve of his lips as he talks, his big hands that constantly move as he gestures.

"And when will we hear the happy news, Ma-chan?" Hashirama's voice is wobbling, a fetching pink flush on his tanned skin. He's finished the first glass of beer, and his next is only half empty. The man's always been such a lightweight.

"What happy news? And don't call me that." Madara drains his cup of sake, refilling from the bottle the bartender had left for him. He can't risk getting drunk, but he also can't sit here completely sober. Not with Hashirama looking like that.

"'Bout you and that Ito guy?" Hashirama spins once, twice on his bar seat, sloshing the beer in his cup half into his mouth and half on his robes.

Madara motions the barkeeper for a towel, and throws it around Hashirama's neck like a bib. Hashirama grins at him, his silky hair all tousled over his shoulder. His front bangs are almost in his drink, because Hashirama is already a mess and they've been here thirty minutes.

"Ito is no 'guy'," Madara sighs, "And what about us?"

Hashirama blinks blearily, drinking from the cup he'd just emptied, and pouting like a child as only foam slides out.

He's unbearably cute.

"My bad, I remember. They don't like me, and never talk to meeee," he whines, "Do they hate me, Ma-chan? I dun want your person to hate me, you're my beeest friend in the whole world y'know?"

"Yes, yes, you say that to everyone when you're drunk." Madara sighs, refilling the other man's tankard. If everyone who's heard Hashirama call them their 'best friend' showed up at the bar, there'd be a line to get in.

He isn't special, not beyond the nostalgia of a shared childhood dream.

"No," Hashirama's hand reaches out and grabs his own.

His gaze, soft and drowsy from alcohol, matches the warmth of his broad palm. For a crazed moment, Madara thinks to flip his own hand and lace their fingers together. To bring that calloused, gentle hand to his own lips and show how much Madara adores him.

He does nothing.

"No, what?" he finally chokes, drink in one hand, and Hashirama holding the other. How foolish he is, to torment himself with what he cannot have. How human, when others call him a monster.

Hashirama leans his head on Madara's shoulder, the heavy silk of his hair draping over Madara's back, and the weight of his body bracing against Madara's body. If Madara turned his head, his lips would touch that smooth forehead.

"Really," Hashirama murmurs, "you're my best friend. I'm Hokage now, no one talks to me the same." He sighs, warm breath brushing Madara's cheek. It's torture. He grimaces and downs the rest of his sake. It burns on the way down, a deep stinging pain from the wounds in his throat. He's lost weight recently, because eating and drinking is more annoying than it's worth.

"You're still the same fool you were as a child, only bigger," Madara grumbles, and jostles Hashirama's clingy body off his own. Hashirama goes easily, his warm, broad palm sliding off Madara's own as he collapses against the bar counter.

The back of his hand feels hot, the phantom pressure of Hashirama's touch still lingering like a burn. Madara flexes his hand and reaches out to pour himself another cup.

"M'not," Hashirama pouts, downing his third drink in one large swallow. The long, smooth line of his throat is mesmerizing, strong and thick. Madara watches his adam's apple move before dragging his eyes away.

"As you say, Hokage-sama."

Hashirama jabs his shoulder, laughing and hiccuping at the same time, like an adorable idiot. "Yeah, as I say!"

Madara loves him. Loves him.

He smiles into his cup, humming and agreeing as Hashirama talks and drinks his way through another cup, and another, until Hashirama can't even keep talking as he wobbles in his seat. His head bobs up and down and his eyes are closed longer than they're open. Exhausted and drunk, Hashirama lays his head down on his arm, and dozes off on the bar counter.

So cute.

His hair falls in a silky curtain down his wide back, the strands around his face sticking to his wet lips. The curve of his lashes flutter as he tucks his head into his arm, his breathing deep and heavy with intoxication. His lips are pale and slightly chapped, but damp and gleaming with alcohol in the dim light.

Madara takes a long drink from his sake, and glances around the mostly empty bar. There's a single civilian man in a corner, their back facing the rest of the room with a line of shots on the table, and the bartender washing dishes in the back room. They're as alone as they ever are nowadays.

He activates his mangekyou, and let's himself look.

Decades of bloodshed, of violence, and death are seared into his mind, as clear and vibrant as the moment they happened. Izuna, run through by Tobirama's sword, and the aftermath, of him slowly, by days, and minutes and seconds, succumbing to the infection that razed his mind with fever and delusions. The last words they spoke to each other are still a festering wound pulsing inside him.

**(take them brother dontforgetme—)**

And he'd taken them, he'd taken his little brother's eyes, perfected their clan's dojutsu, and lived for hate, for revenge, even as his clan betrayed him.

All but Hashirama, _Hashirama_.

His hand reaches out, touches the slope of the man's nose, traces the sharp cut of his cheekbones down to the curve of his lips. Touches his fingers against those lips, his eyes devouring the vision, the _revelation_ of touching skin. He swallows down the choking in his lungs, swallows down the sweet poison strangling him.

The strands of hair clinging to those lips slips away, but Madara catches it, sliding his sensitive fingertips down the silky strands until he holds just the ends in his grasp. Hashirama still sleeps, secure and trusting, of _him_.

Sage, he loves him.

**(brother brother don't you love me miss me avenge me killsenjutobira-)**

His hand trembles, a clenching sensation not in his throat, but in his heart. His eyes are still sharingan red as he raises his shaking hand and kisses the lock of hair.

Enough, it's enough.

**(he's weak choke him take him kill him)**

The strands slip through his fingers, and he has nothing left but the phantom heat of the other man's skin burned into his memory. His mangekyo flickers and dies. His chest aches, the flowers compressed down with chakra, but clawing and growing up his throat. It gets worse every time he's around him, even when he thinks of him.

Madara downs his sake, and goes towards the tavern door. It opens without a sound, and a cool wind brushes his face. With a whistle, one of the patrolling shinobi, an Aburame from the high collar and hood, comes to him.

"Tell Uzumaki-san the Hokage will be returning soon." The Aburame nods, and flickers away to deliver his message. With a sigh, Madara turns back to Hashirama's slumbering form and hefts the man from his seat.

There's only a few inches in height between them, but it makes the other man unwieldy to carry. For a moment Madara contemplates princess carry, but despite the late hour there are still people in the streets. He supposes he can leave Hashirama some dignity.

Madara makes his way through the lantern illuminated streets, Hashirama a warm, heavy weight against his side.

He takes a moment to stumble over to a wall and cough, choking up a flower into his hand with a well practiced heave. It's a deep red, the blood dripping from his mouth and hand makes it look like the flower itself is bleeding. How poetic.

Ahh, and he'd been doing so well today too.

Hashirama grumbles next to his ear, settling his hot face into the curve of Madara's neck before settling into a deeper sleep. The sounds of the village they'd dreamed of as children surrounds them, and it's enough.

It must be enough.

The Hokage's house is beautiful and grown of wood in the traditional style. There's one red lantern glowing at the front step, but Madara can sense hidden guards around the property. Madara brings Hashirama up the steps and through the front door, veering into the living room where Mito's vast ocean of chakra dwells.

The woman herself is settled at a low table, tea steaming in front of her.

"Throw him there," Mito says, inclining her head towards the cushion covered floor of the living room. The long, vibrant red strands of her hair are coiled in a loose rope over one shoulder, her usual elaborate robes exchanged for loose sleeping attire. Madara can see the curve of her stomach pressing against the fabric, she's close to her due date and it shows. It's been months since Hashirama took the title of Hokage, and Mito's a woman who's become resplendent with her pregnancy.

Already a strong, cunning and vicious kunoichi, she now glimmers like an unsheathed sword, freshly sharpened. It's very attractive, and has Hashirama driven to distraction at all hours of the day from what he's heard. If it wasn't for the idiot's bastard brother Konoha would be collapsing on itself.

He let's Hashirama slide from his arms to the cushions with minimal care, the icy gleam of Mito's eyes watch him. Watching them, together.

The woman knows more than she says, and comprehends more than anyone knows. It's unsettling.

"Uzumaki-san," he says, inclining his head and giving the bare pleasantries as Hashirama snorts and rolls over on the floor. Mito hums, and sets down her tea cup with a click. A clear dismissal, for a servant, which Madara is not. He grits his teeth, but turns to leave. There's no battle here, nothing to win or fight for. Let Mito have her petty victory.

"Won't you sit with me, Madara-san." It's not a suggestion, but Madara is no servant, he cannot be ordered or coerced. He can leave.

He stays. A woman's wrath is a formidable thing and she has the ear of the man he loves. Madara knows to pick his battles.

Mito pours another cup from the full pot on the table. There are only two cups, and the tea is freshly steeped.

An ambush.

Foolish of him to expect anything less from Uzumaki Mito, but he'll excuse himself. Alcohol still burns in his veins, dulling his body and wits, and the constant, inescapable pain of his lungs and throat have started to spread these last few weeks. The disease is getting worse, and at this rate he'll be dead soon after the baby is born.

The silence lengthens, as Madara's tea cools on the table untouched. It drags and drags until Madara can't take it anymore.

"How is your health?"

"Adequate, and yours?"

"I am well."

"I see."

The sounds of Hashirama's snuffling breaths and the clink of Mito sipping her tea press down on him. There's an ominous tickling at the back of his throat, the petals creeping up again. The time between attacks is getting smaller...

He grimaces at his tea cup and takes a long drink. It's good, mild, but flavorful. Unpoisoned.

You never know, he thinks wryly. Women have a particular intuition when it comes to others coveting their partners, and done far worse than poison the competition. Though Mito has nothing to worry about, he thinks and glances at her swollen stomach.

She notices his look, and rests one hand on the curve of her belly.

"They're moving and kicking now, energetic like their father." She smiles and smoothes her hand down. "Would you like to feel th-"

"No," he says abruptly, rising from his seat with a jerk. Mito watches him with a dark, contemplative gaze.

How unsettling.

He turns away, done with this farce, this conversation as eviscerating as a sharp blade to the stomach and as damning. She knows, she knows how he feels. Is it on his face, can everyone see how he burns, how he chokes and covetes for Hashirama's every look, every breath and touch?

Fuck.

"Be more careful, Madara-san. Hashirama worries." Mito's voice is soft, concerned.

"What?" he snaps, halfway between the table and the door. He's fumbling like a child with their first kunai. Weak, _weak_.

"Your hand."

He glances down despite himself, and sees that the faintest trace of blood is still visible on his hand from earlier. He clenches his nails into his palm, and hides it away behind his body.

"Don't concern yourself."

She hums, a small tilt of her head sending her braid behind her. "Hashirama was beside himself after you rejected his spar today."

A question, but not a question.

"I was busy."

"Too busy to spar?"

"Clan business. I'm sure Hashirama has spoken to you."

"Despite what you may think, Madara-san. Hashirama does not share everything. Your business is your own." Mito levers herself up, her belly larger even than Madara thought it would be. "But as a friend, I'd say attempt to resolve this business, and cure Hashirama's worries, won't you?"

"A friend would know to keep their tongue," he snaps, bristling like the clan neko-nins when their tails are grabbed.

"You'll always have a friend in me, Madara-san. Whether you acknowledge it or not."

What foolishness. There is only one person here Madara calls a friend, and he's the other person in this room.

"Keep your sentiment," he snarls, his chest heaving with sudden fury. His weakened lungs ache from the strength of his rage, and he cycles his chakra to keep a coughing attack suppressed. His chakra flutters and stops, blocked by the foreign contaminants in his body. The flowers creep up his throat, and he swallows them down with sheer willpower.

He isn't _weak_! He's an Uchiha, and Uchiha's are born in blood and tempered by fire.

Mito watches him, eyes as cold and merciless as the sea she calls her homeland. "As you wish, Uchiha-san."

He needs to get away, away from this, away from Hashirama's oblivious stupor, and Mito's treacherous sympathy.

The door slides shut behind him, and a cool fresh breeze fills his heavy lungs.

He's tired. So tired.

The sky is filled with stars, the moon a brilliant, full light. The village is peaceful with the streets deserted, and only a few lanterns lighting some street corners ominously. The night patrol roams the outskirts of the village to keep everyone inside safe.

He stumbles into the nearest alleyway and clings to the rough walls with white knuckled hands. His body wracked and trembling from the agony of his lungs turning themselves inside out. All the flowers he's packed inside himself come out inch by bloody, painful inch.

Seconds pass like minutes and minutes like hours, as his shaking legs give out beneath him until he's kneeling in his own muddy, blood covered shame. A ruined bouquet of flowers lay crushed beneath him, their petals unrecognizable in the filth. He's trembling all over, wracked by coughs, flowers and stems and _roots_ ripping their way out of his lungs.

Ahh...it's coming. If his lungs are so full now that even the roots are being forced out of his lungs…

There's not much time left, and Ito's out pursuing the last of their leads. If this rumored doctor doesn't bear fruit, he'll have to take a suicide mission and not come back.

He'll be just another shinobi lost on a mission, body unretrievable, and the rest of him unmourned except by Hashirama and perhaps Ito.

"Haaahahh…" he groans.

He stays in the alley on his knees for a long moment, waiting for the trembling of his body to stop. But it doesn't, so he kneels and shakes, and he watches as water drips down his face onto his blood covered palms. It smells like salt.

Ah...he's tired.

He flexes his chakra and burns the mess he's made. His body is still trembling, but the patrol for this area of the village will pass by soon and he's too conspicuous. He stumbles to his feet, and makes his way through the village, dodging into alleys to avoid the eyes of shinobi and civilians alike.

The Uchiha compound is silent, with two guard rotations circling around the perimeter. He slips between a gap, and heads towards the river bank. The Naka shrine looms out of the dark, a flicker of firelight showing from beneath the doorway.

The inside is clean and warm, and there's a beautiful metal lantern set before the family shrine. The offering flames are carefully fed every hour by the patrolling teams so that the light shed on the Uchiha ancestors never died. In the history of the Uchiha family, the flame has only ever extinguished once. The records from that period were scarce and filled with blood and death.

It's a curse to let the flames die, and he's had his fill of curses. Madara adds a sliver of wood to the fire, and then descends down the hidden stairs behind the altar. The ancient stone tablet of his ancestors waits for him beneath the shrine, along with a table covered in paper filled with his translations. He's getting close, each day he deciphers another part of the key hiding the ancient secrets of the Uchiha.

He settles down at his writing table, and takes up the ink stone to grind a new tray, his mangekyou flickers on and he records the smooth twist of his wrist, the steady line of his arm. It's soothing, the repetition.

**(so close brother what secrets what treasure will we find what power soon soon)**

"Patience, brother," Madara murmurs. He picks up his brush, and turns their eyes to the stone. The spirals of their eyes swirl, twisting faster and faster until the previously incomprehensible lines in the stone turn into something _almost_ legible.

He's so close he can taste it.

**(such secrets such power for us)**

"Yes, brother, soon," Madara agrees, and sets his brush to paper.


	4. Chapter 4 : Pollinating

**A/N** : This was supposed to be the last chapter! But lol, there's actually two more left after this one. Of course I say that now...

**Pollinating**

The baby comes into the world wet, slimy, and loud, with hair the color of the sunset and eyes a deep satin brown. To greet her, Madara's summoned from his work on his ancestor's stone writings by the nervous shout of a child outside the Naka Shrine.

When he rises from the basement, there's an Uchiha child waiting for him outside the shrine, his shiny hitai-ate denoting him as one of the first batch of graduates from the Shinobi Academy that bastard Senju dreamed up. The child tells him that the Hokage's wife is giving birth and he's been summoned to the hospital.

When he arrives, Mito is already in the birthing chamber, with Hashirama pacing a hole in the floor outside, and Tobirama reading a scroll on a nearby chair. Thankfully, the birthing room is carefully sealed against sound, smell and unauthorized entrance by Mito herself. In Madara's opinion it's to prevent her useless husband from crying all over her while she does all the hard work.

"Calm yourself," he says sharply, grabbing Hashirama by the shoulder and body checking him into the uncomfortable looking waiting chairs. Tobirama twitches, hand flashing towards his weapon's pouch. Hashirama doesn't see it, his entire being focused on the door, but Madara notes it, and files it away.

How ironic, since of the two of them, Madara isn't the brother killer.

"I should be in there with her," Hashirama says frantically, his body practically vibrating off the chair. He's a mess, dressed only in a house yukata and his sandals. Even the Konoha hitai-ate he's worn everyday is nowhere to be seen.

"What time is it?" Madara mutters, thoroughly thrown off by his clothes.

"Five in the morning," Tobirama answers, turning back to the scroll in his 's something evil about doing work when the sun hasn't even risen.

"Ahh…" he murmurs, coughing into his elbow. So that's why his eyes feel like sandpaper and he craves sleep.

"What if she needs me?" Hashirama whispers, eyes locked on the door, and a wild look in his eyes.

"Don't you dare," Madara says, with Tobirama echoing the sentiment.

"Let Uzumaki and the medic-nin do their work," Madara grumbles, "You'll be in the way."

"And probably faint," Tobirama adds, quill flourishing Hashirama's signature on a report which he sets to the side as he picks up another scroll from a pile next to him.

"She's probably scared. What if she's asking for me and I can't hear her?" Hashirama whimpers, half rising from his seat.

Scared? Madara thinks of Mito, bloodied and vicious in battle and can't imagine it.

"If you want to disturb her now by breaking in, that's your own business," Madara says, and sits down. Sage, his body aches. He's losing weight faster than he can put it back on, and it's showing. But how can he eat when his throat is shredded? How can he train when his chakra is locked in a vicious battle with this disease, and losing?

Hashirama stands, takes a step forward and looks at the heavily sealed door, and sits back down again. "You're right, I shouldn't disturb her."

"I know I'm right," Madara says.

Tobirama snorts, but doesn't say anything. Hashirama doesn't seem to hear him, his eyes fixed on the door of the birthing chamber. No one else exists in his eyes now, only his wife and the child.

Using chakra to assist with birth is dangerous, as both the birther and child would see the foreign chakra as an attack. The child's spark could easily be snuffed out, and what came out would only be an empty shell.

Childbirth is a perilous and frightening path for shinobi whose career and ability could be destroyed with a tricky birth.

Hashirama is right to be worried.

Hours pass this way, as Madara lets his head rest against the hospital wall and closes his eyes. He tucks his trembling hands into the sleeves of his yukata and takes a moment to rest.

The only thing they can do is have faith.

Hours later, when the sun has truly risen and they've already finished breakfast and lunch, a nurse slips out the warded door and into the hallway. Hashirama, in the same position he has been for hours, leaps to his feet.

"Hokag-" the nurse begins.

"How are they?" Hashirama asks, words tumbling from his mouth, "Are they healthy? No rather, did anything go wrong? Is Mito asking for me?" He rushes forward, the expression on his face as fierce as Madara's ever seen it. There's no trace of his usual good will and humor, which on a man made to smile is particularly frightening.

The nurse yelps and plasters herself back against the closed door.

"Calm yourself, brother," Tobirama says, "let the woman speak."

Hashirama looks two seconds from pushing through the door, but restrains himself.

The nurse's face is pale and shocked. No doubt her image of their venerable, good-hearted Hokage has taken a blow, since not many people have seen him so fierce. The man may play the fool, but he wouldn't be the head of a clan, nor the head of the village, if he wasn't capable.

"Speak," Hashirama orders, eyes narrowed and lips pressed tight and devoid of their usual humor.

The nurse swallows heavily, but rallies her professionalism. "Both of them are healthy. Uzumaki-sama had no complications and the birth was smooth. Now she's asking for you."

The tension in the room fades away, and Hashirama takes a deep breath, relief and joy filling his features. He takes a moment to smile at the nurse before pushing into the room.

"Mito, my lov-" the three of them manage to hear before the door clicks shut behind the nurse's back. Tobirama turns his gaze to the nurse, and interrogates her about the birth.

Madara coughs into a handkerchief, the noise rings in the hospital corridor, hoarse and painful sounding. He tucks away the blood and petals into his sleeve, as Tobirama and the nurse look over to him. The nurse has a concerned and terrified expression, and Tobirama examines him with narrow expressionless eyes.

"U-Uchiha-sama, d-do you have a cold? Let a doctor do an examination and prescribe some medicine…" she trails off uneasily. She's scared of him.

"No need, I've seen my own medic," Madara responds. Ah, he took too long to leave. There's no need to stay in this miserable place for longer with Hashirama distracted.

He looks at the nurse, ignoring Tobirama's looming shadow. "Tell the Hokage my congratulations," he says, standing from his seat.

For a moment the entire world rocks, like he's standing on a boat sailing a great sea. Flickers of black cross his vision and he almost sways in place as his legs weaken. But he can't, he _can't _show weakness now. He's so close, Hashirama can't find out. As the world fades around him and comes back like the tide rushing in and out of the sea.

"Stay, he'll want to see you after," Tobirama says quietly. The nurse has slipped away in his moment of weakness, a moment long enough that any incompetent enemy could have slipped a knife in his back.

The world is still swaying around him, his head and chest throbbing with the lack of blood and air. Is this it? Is this the end?

"Hmm…" he says to fill the silence because he can't speak or everyone will _know_. He blinks, and finds himself back in his seat without knowing how he got there.

Before he can muster the energy to leave, the door creaks open and Hashirama's voice echoes out.

"Come in!"

Tobirama enters before him, leading with his unprotected back, trusting Madara. He shouldn't, he shouldn't. Madara thinks about cutting Tobirama's throat every time he sees him. Hears Izuna's death rattles as he slips away in agony.

The moment passes, and Madara follows the other man into the hospital room.

Everyone in the room is crowded around the resting bed, where Mito lays with a bundle pressed to her breast. Hashirama is sitting on the edge of the bed, one arm settled around Mito and the other pressed against the baby's back. Tobirama is hovering over Hashirama's shoulder, peering intently at the new Senju spawn.

The medic-nin is on the other side of the bed flipping through the patient's medical information. "Everything looks great here, there should be no issues going forward. However, if you have any pain or discomfort please come back for a checkup." The medi-nin looks up and smiles at the new parents before leaving, the door clicking shut behind them.

"She's beautiful," Tobirama murmurs, setting his hand on his brother's shoulder.

"O-of course she is!" Hashirama says, his voice choking and cracking with emotions, "She's Mito's."

"And yours," Madara says quietly.

Hashirama looks up from his child, a beaming smile creasing the corners of his eyes and lips. Sunbeams stream through the window and caress his face.

"Come see our daughter, Madara." Hashirama beckons him forward, and he follows like a fish on a lure… or a dog on a leash.

Our daughter.

In another life, it could have been _their_ child.

He walks over, rounding the bed to come to the other side. Tobirama and Madara on one side and him on the other with Mito and the baby between them.

The baby is red and squished, mouth pursed against Mito's breast as she drinks her full. Her head is covered in light red hair, so thin and fine like silk. Her murky brown eyes are half squinted as she peers up at the world. If Madara's honest, she's not very cute, but birth is a traumatic process for birther and child. In a few months time, she'll be chubbier and sweeter the same way Izuna was as a baby.

"What will you name her?" Tobirama asks, voice gentler and sweeter than Madara's ever heard it.

Husband and wife exchange a glance, Hashirama all beaming smiles and Mito more reserved. When Hashirama looks back to his brother, Madara notices the way Mito's mouth creases into a slight frown. A disagreement over the name?

"Don't be jealous, brother," Hashirama jokes, "I promised that our kid would be named after their godparent. So we've decided to name her Maiya. But the next one we'll name after you!" He turns to Madara with a big smile that begs for praise. "Senju Maiya, what do you think of your namesake, Ma-chan?"

"Me?" he says, struck with shock. A Senju child, Hashirama's child, named after him, Uchiha Madara? His ancestors will be rolling over in their graves.

"Who else?" Hashirama laughs. "Madara you're a brother to me, my best friend." He pauses to look down at the child, at Maiya, with affection as deep and steady as the earth. "We realized our dream, you know? That far flung dream we had on the edges of the riverbank as two boys. Our children won't die on the battlefield for a feud we don't remember the beginning of!"

He reaches out and smoothes his hand over the baby's head. Mito settles her hand over Hashirama's own, threading their fingers together. Hashirama gazes at them both with gentle and loving eyes.

"We'll have peace," he says softly.

What can anyone say to that? Hashirama's vision for peace in the Elemental nations is his greatest dream, Konohagakure the first child of his heart. But already Madara is hearing rumors of other clans banding together in the land of Earth and Stone. He is certain that other countries will be doing the same as Fire Country. And what will happen then? Will these shinobi villages be content with their land, the meager missions given by civilians and nobility?

Already the Daimyo of Fire Country is commissioning missions that breach country borders, and asking covertly if the Hokage might spare any shinobi to act as his personal guard.

Peace. What peace?

Their dream was too small as children, only thinking of their clans, of no more children being sent to die on the battlefield, of not living in fear of assassin's everyday. But now? Now it's not only the clans of Fire country, but villages of foreign shinobi in countries with agendas.

And money speaks.

Madara expects a war will come soon. Maybe not next year, or the year after. But five years, ten? And when the adult shinobi run dry, how long will the childhood of shinobi children last? How many grudges will be made on blood soaked fields that cross the continent?

But Hashirama won't see it, can't see it. One day his optimism will kill him, but Madara will die before anyone touches him.

But for now, he stands across from the one he loves and knows regret.

Tobirama and Hashirama speak to each other in a low tone as the baby dozes in Mito's arms. Mito listens seriously, offering a choice comment or two to the discussion. More village politics about land allocation and resources, banal things that no clan head would accept his advice on.

The baby is more interesting, as tiny and fragile as she is, it's hard to believe that such a thing was created in only nine months. A whole person that would grow up with the stigma of bearing Madara's name.

He hasn't seen a baby this young so close since Izuna was born. Even before his mother and father, Madara held that small form in his shaking arms, terrified to drop him. His precious brother, more dear than his own life.

His eyes flicker for a moment, pinwheels twisting from his pupils to capture the child's image so he can remember this moment. Every bittersweet part of it.

Maiya. His namesake.

A few weeks later, the door to his office slams open without even a knock in the middle of the morning, and a travel-worn Yamanaka strides into the room.

They look like shit. Their long, silky hair is in a frayed looking braid and shorter than before, the edges choppy like they took a kunai to it. Their cheeks are hollow, their body rail thin as though they've pushed their body to the limit and only had rations and what game they could find on the road. But despite their rough look, they're smiling.

They shut the door behind them and press a finger to their lips. Madara presses the noise cancelling seal on his desk, a recent addition from a bed-rest crazed Uzumaki.

"What is it, Ito?" Madara asks, his heart thumping in his chest. This must be good news.

"I've returned, I have her," Ito breathes, a smile breaking through the exhaustion on his face, "she's waiting at my home now. The surgery preparations can be finished by tomorrow!"

"Tomorrow…" It's unfathomable.

He's been dying for so long without a glimmer of hope that it doesn't feel real.

"She's successfully performed the surgery before?" The only reason the disease has been left to run its course is because Madara _cannot _use a Konoha medic. There's no order or debt that would prevent Hashirama from hearing of it, and what he knows, his wife and brother know.

There are not enough people in Madara's life for the cause of his Hanahaki disease to be a secret for longer than it took to count his close acquaintances on one hand.

"Successfully yes. A few couldn't stand to live afterwards, but none of them died during surgery, a few were even late state patients. Your chances are as good as we can make them."

"Good. I'd almost resigned myself," Madara says quietly. "Let's do it tomorrow, everyone will be distracted by the founding festival preparations, there'll be time."

Ito frowns. "Won't Hashirama be looking for you? This is an important festival, you both founded Konohagakure together…"

"With his child barely a month old, Mito is too busy to help, and Tobirama is running the village. Hashirama can barely take a moment to shit before he's taken up by festival preparations." Madara snorts, his mouth twisting into a grimace. "I haven't been consulted," he finishes wryly.

Ito hesitates, mouth opening as if to say some platitudes, but they decide against it. Which is for the best, Madara isn't in a place to take them gracefully.

The silence lasts a few moments before Ito sighs and says, "The doctor needs to examine you before the surgery, and make some preparations. Come to my home tonight. Since I just returned, no one will question you coming to see me."

Certainly Hashirama will be pleased if he hears the news, the man has been asking about their relationship for months now. Madara is half certain Hashirama thinks he's lying and that Madara and Ito's wedding is only months away.

Once Hashirama gets a notion in his head, he locks on with full strength and doesn't let go. In some ways this tendency is a blessing but in other ways it drives Madara crazy.

"I'll come tonight after dark," he says, pulling himself from his thoughts. "Take a rest, you look even worse than the last time I saw you."

Ito snorts. "I could say the same." Their face twists with an inexplicable look, half pain, half hesitation, like they have more to say. It's a face Madara's become familiar with lately, as Hashirama, despite his duties, sends him the same look every counsel meeting.

"I'm alive, and I aim to stay that way," Madara says dryly.

"The motto of all shinobi." Ito laughs, their eyes curving into crescents.

Madara snorts, and waves his hand dismissively. "Off with you, I'll come by tonight. Make the doctor comfortable, the last thing we need is her deciding she wants to wander around and meet people she shouldn't be meeting."

"Of course, Jounin Commander," Ito says, a smile still caught in their voice. They sweep a bow, and walk out the door with a bit of a suanter in their step. It's the happiest they've looked in five months, if not the cleanest.

Madara looks back to his paperwork, which is more than it's ever been with Tobirama busy with festival preparations and the flood of new clans and civilians begging for entry into Konohagakure.

Several hours later, he sets the last of his paperwork into the finished piles and presses the reverse summoning seal. The papers whisk away to their final destinations, and Madara is done. Another new implementation from two months ago when Mito's feet were too swollen to walk on for long.

Within the last few months, there's been a revelation in the sealing community of Konoha, all because one woman is bored being confined to the maternity room.

The sun is dipping down, streaks of pink and red cresting the tree line. He's so tired. Sitting at a desk for a few hours is already enough to bring him to the brink of exhaustion. How disgusting.

The Hokage's tower is still bustling with people running back and forth preparing for the Founding Day Festival and the delegation from the Uzumaki clan. With the birth of Mito's child, the woman's family is eager to meet their new descendent. Hashirama's half pleased, half terrified, and from what Madara's heard of his in-laws he has a right to be.

A direct path out of the tower opens up before him like he's a leper as he walks through the hallways. The Hokage's office door is decisively closed which means Tobirama is inside. Hashirama prefered to keep his doors open so any shinobi or citizen of Konoha could come see and speak with him. Of course, under his supervision, no one of suspicious or compromised origins would make it within spitting distance of the tower walls.

The tower doors close behind him and the streets before him are filled with Konoha civilians rushing home from their work, or going out to dinner and later bars which open late at night.

Only the essential buildings, and shinobi dwellings had the luxury (and the sense) to use quality oils, so the smoke from the lanterns gave a cheap, smoggy film over the top of the village. Civilians… it was a miracle they lived long enough to reproduce.

He passes through the streets like a ghost, avoiding patrols and civilians as he reaches the outskirts of the Yamanaka land. The smoky filth of the village doesn't reach the tree line, and the woods themselves are dark and treacherous. Without his skill and the instructions of a Yamanaka, it would be impossible to penetrate the forest without tripping the protections and alerting the guards.

Ito's home is barely within view of a few other dwellings, their comings and going obscured by the trees the way Ito prefers. In this moment a Yamanaka's preference to be isolated and undisturbed, while strange and discomfiting, benefits his plans. And his life.

The windows glow with lantern light, but his senses only perceive one presence, as though the doctor doesn't exist. There's not a void, or even a civilian level chakra presence but Madara knows Ito wouldn't foolishly let the woman out of their sight.

He flares his chakra at the door to announce himself and it opens instantly, like Ito was waiting at the door for him.

"You're here," they say with relief, taking a harried glance over their shoulder. Despite having cleaned up since the morning, Ito still looks exhausted and last few months searching through the depths of the Elemental Countries for a doctor haven't been kind to him.

"Un, I'm here," he responds.

As he steps into the house, he sweeps his gaze over the room. It's dusty and smells stale, but there's a pot of tea on the table and several scrolls laid out on the table. Sitting at the table is an old woman with a vague resemblance to the scroll Ito had shown him months ago.

"So you're the one," Madara greets.

This miracle doctor doesn't look like much, with a stooped back, gnarled fingers and weathered skin. The old woman's eyes were sharp and observant as she dragged her eyes over his body.

"Aye, I'm the one," she said, "and a good thing too, you're a man close to death."

Out of the two of them, Madara doesn't think the doctor should be pointing fingers.

"Just do your job, and you'll be rewarded," he says stiffly. He sits down at the table, and Ito follows him. They make a strange picture, two shinobi and a withered old woman having tea in the middle of the night.

Ito fills up another tea cup, and slouches down at the kotatsu. "This is Sato, I retrieved her from River country."

Sato snorts. "Your subordinate has rewarded me well enough. Once I'm done with you, I'll retire somewhere warm and spend my days in comfort," she says with a wave of her hand. "But first let's answer some questions."

"What do you need to know before the surgery?" Ito asks, a frown crossing his face. Giving away personal information to a stranger is anathema to any shinobi, there's too many ways things can go horribly wrong.

"A general patient information. Age, weight, pre-existing conditions, how long you've had it, the type of flower and so forth. Anything that could be useful to the surgery." She takes a scroll, brush and ink pot from her bag and slides them over the table. "Don't lie," she warns, "this surgery is difficult and with the wrong information, it can easily go wrong."

The questions are simple enough, but also dangerous in the hands of others. Madara has many enemies that would kill to know his medical information. But needs must, and he'll be dead either way. He fills in the last line and slides it back to the doctor.

There's a possibility he could die beneath her knife tomorrow, her skill not enough to carve the proof of this foolish love from him. No need to cling to what she should and should not know.

She checks over the answers, humming and muttering beneath her breath before she finally snorts with disdain. "Took you twenty years to realize how you felt? Late bloomer."

Madara closes his eyes and breaths through the flare of annoyance. She's an old civilian woman, and his only hope. He can't maim her.

"Is that enough?" Ito asks, settling one hand on Madara's forearm as if to restrain him.

"Enough," she says, waving her hand, "Go, sleep. Come early tomorrow and we'll get it done." She sweeps her eyes over him, lingering on the dark circles beneath his eyes, and his cracking lips. "As much sleep as you can," she says.

Which won't be much, sleeping a full night was difficult five months ago, and now Madara survives on cat naps and willpower.

"Tomorrow then," he says, and rises from his seat. Ito follows him up, practically hovering next to his elbow as they see him to the door.

"I'm fine," he grumbles. Their concerned gaze scraps against him, irritating and smothering. "Don't bother, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Ito says. They touch his shoulder, a brief gesture but it makes him shudder.

He nods, and walks out. His feet turn towards the Uchiha compound, and the Nara shrine that holds his research project. But if he starts on deciphering the stone, he won't rest at all tonight…

Instead he turns back the way he came earlier that night. Best to go back to his office, at this hour, only the night watch will be there and even as he is now, those shinobi won't notice him. He can rest for a few hours at least.

His office is dark and empty, his desk has a few more scrolls on it from the night shift, and his couch is beckoning him into its grasp. He flops down, pulling the blanket off the back and rearranging the couch cushions so he's more comfortable.

He coughs, and it doesn't even hurt anymore. The flowers are so close to the top of his throat they don't have to travel far.

There's a fully bloomed flower in his hand, but no stems or roots. In the last few days, his illness has almost been getting better, not worse. It's not a good sign, it means the roots and stems are so entwined and embedded that they can't even make it up his throat.

Within the next few weeks, he will die. If the doctor hurries his last moments along tomorrow, what will it matter.

He flings an arm over his aching eyes, and listens to the silence. The only thing he can hear in this room is his shaky breath, and it's stifling, terrifying…

His sharingan flickers on.

**(brother) **Izuna's voice croons, echoing in his ears, filling the emptiness. The whispers continue, an endless stream of noise, of pleas and exhortations, of threats and plots. His little brother talks and talks and talks, the way he never did in life.

It's enough.

He drifts to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5 : Cutting

**A/N :** Has the word count for this fic tripled? Yes. I'm suffering but I hope you guys enjoy!

**Cutting**

The night before the surgery is long and restless, but he sleeps more than he's slept in months. He feels almost normal as he walks the trail to Ito's home, checking constantly for observers along his route. Three times he detours around the village and Yamanaka patrols until he reaches the front door of Ito's home.

He doesn't even have the time to knock before Ito opens the door and drags him inside. There's relief painted on every inch of their face, their hair still braided and dressed in their sleep yukata.

"Thank Sage you're here," they say, patting his shoulder as the both of them stand in the entryway.

Ito's home has been transformed in a night, the cozy interior now covered in runes and medical equipment until it looks like a hospital room, not a living area. Even the kotatsu has been moved into storage to make way for a long operating table.

"The things I do for you, Madara," Ito grumbles, casting their eye over the entire room.

"Give and take." Madara smiles. "If this doesn't work I've left you some good things. This lord won't wrong you."

Ito's eyes roll back in their sockets as he says sarcastically, "This lord my ass. Just live through this, and that'll be enough to not wrong me."

Their bickering is interrupted as the doctor comes shuffling into the room carrying her medical bag and muttering under her breath. She's dressed in a clean, white apron with her hair back in a severe bun. There's a pair of gloves slipped into the apron pocket along with several metal instruments that look meant for the T&I department rather than a surgery room.

"Enough chatter, let's get this folly over with," she says sharply, casting a fierce eye over the both of them. "I don't repeat myself, so you—" She jabs one knobby finger at Madara "—know the risks and accept them." She turns her gimlet stare on Ito, her lips pressed in a thin, white line. "And no complaints from your quarter if this fool dies. I'm too old for revenge plots."

Ito smiles, but the humor doesn't reach their eyes. "We realize the difficulty of the surgery. If he dies I will have far more important things to be dealing with than the doctor who tried to save him." At this, he looks wryly in the direction of the village.

It's true, if Madara dies in Ito's house, Hashirama won't stop until everything comes out. And the one who suffers then will be Ito, since Madara will have past on into the cycle.

"Hmmph," Sato snorts, "Well then let's begin." She turns to Madara and points at the table. "Get on, lose your armor and shirt, and put up all that hair."

Ahh, it's time…

Madara tugs at his shirt, which has been hanging loosely on his body for months. He's lost a lot of weight since his illness started, his cultivated muscles wasted away to sinew and bone. A lack of exercise, and food, he's practically emaciated. The only way to hide this weakness is to wear his armor which creates an illusion of muscle and bulk. But as everything he does, his enemies whisper about his greed for war, his love of fighting and killing… because he never goes unarmored or unarmed.

He also wishes to remove the weight of his armor, to toss aside the stigma it bears. But… but… his body is weak, _he's weak_.

He drags off his purple, high-collared shirt and sets it with his armor near his weapons. His gunbai leans against the wall, with his weapons pouch next to it.

The operating table is cold beneath his legs, as he sits down and reaches for the heavy mess of his hair, fumbling it over his shoulder.

"I'll help," Ito says softly, coming up behind him and slowly reaching out for his hair. With hands close to his bare back, Madara can't help but twitch. Still, he's never done more than tie his hair back in a ponytail as he writes, he'll leave more complicated hairstyles to a master.

Ito pulls his hair away from his back and separates it into separate sections, pulling and twisting until the entirety of his hair is off his back.

Sato turns back from her medicine bag, holding a leather bag filled with vials and syringes. There's a mask in her other hand, connected by a tube to some breathing apparatus. She eyes him up and down and snorts.

"Good enough. Now lay back. You'll feel a prick and fall asleep," Sato said gruffly, her rough hands grab his head and fasten a mask over his mouth. In the next moment, as Ito hovers at his shoulder, there's a pinch.

For the first time in months, he feels no pain, nothing. Then the world melts away around him, and he falls blissfully into unconsciousness.

A moment later, light pierces through his eyelids, and voices surround him, but everything sounds as though he's under water. He doesn't feel right.

"-ad-ra...ma-ara. Madara!"

He blinks his eyes open.

Ito's hovering next to the bed, their light blonde hair is a mess, with strands pulled out from their careful bun and sticking to the sweat glistening on their brow. Their purple eyes are glimmering with joy as they lean over Madara's face.

"Water," he rasps.

Ito leaps up and comes back with water and a straw. The straw is pressed against his lips moments later, and he drains the glass in seconds as though he hasn't drunk in days, which is almost true. The few days before the surgery his throat has been too ravaged to eat or drink. It has been for months.

Sato has taken the flowers and roots from his lungs, and put salve inside his throat. Madara thinks he should feel grateful… but he doesn't feel anything.

His body feels detached from his mind, and in the center of his chest is a throbbing pain.

"My chest," he groans. Sage, it _hurts. _

"This old woman is a doctor, not a miracle worker," Sato snaps, bustling into view, "I removed the disease, but it was a major surgery. here will be some pain. Give it a month and all you'll have left is a scar."

"Our thanks," Ito says, their face drawn and tight with exhaustion.

"Romantic idiots," the old woman grumbled, "don't give your heart away to anyone. It's a dangerous business that." She begins to pack away her items, one gnarled hand wipping down various instruments that look like they belong in a torture chamber than a medical bag.

"I want to sit up."

Ito wraps an arm around his bare waist and props him up against their body. Sage, his entire body aches and a deep stabbing pain radiates from his bare chest. He looks down.

The entire center of his chest is marked by long crisscrossing scars on either side of his body, curving around to his back. The incisions are still red and irritated, the healing Sato could muster wasn't enough to heal him entirely.

"They're gone?" he asks hoarsely, touching one hand to his chest.

"It's gone, yes," she snaps, "I dug through both lungs and up your throat. Did you know you have burn scars and more nonsense in there? Living to make my job harder," she grumbles, "I flushed all the spores out. I double, _triple_ checked! Unless your fool self falls in another thankless love again, it's gone forever."

Madara blinks slowly, his thoughts moving like molasses through his skull.

Hashirama.

He tastes that name on his tongue, the familiar cadence, the familiarity of it. It comes so easily, because he's said it hundreds, thousands of times. He's thought it more.

Only now, he says it and like an old amputation, he feels only a thrumming nothingness where there was once a limb.

Hashirama… "Hashirama…" he murmurs again, waiting for the particular ache he feels every time he thinks of the man. Only, he feels nothing.

How strange.

"Madara?" Ito asks softly. Their hand touches the skin of his shoulder, and they lean down to look into his face. "How do you feel?"

"Fine, better…" he says. It isn't exactly true, but it also isn't a lie. The heavy pressure of flowers in his lungs and the agony of his torn throat is gone. But now he doesn't feel anything, only this strange numbness.

Madara's never been so estranged from _feeling_ before. Whether good or bad, either rage or joy, he is a man who feels strongly.

Only now he looks at Ito and the world around him and musters nothing. Even the disrespectful old woman, who he'd snarled at and threatened last night, inspires only a vague concern.

Ito looks him over, his face set in a neutral expression, but his lips pursed in what Madara knows is concern.

"Truly, I'm fine," Madara says, pressing a hand against his chest where the pain pulses and crests. "They're gone."

All gone.

After days and months of struggling to breath, of feeling himself die slowly every second of every day, of sleeping in fits and starts because he was scared he'd suffocate in his sleep. It's over.

He looks up at the doctor and opens his mouth to say something… but there's nothing more to say. She's finished her job, and Madara is still alive. It's the optimal outcome, and their cooperation is finished.

"Ito," he says, the rasp of his voice painful to hear. His throat is cracked and dry, but not bloody and raw anymore. Small mercies.

"Yes, sir," Ito responds, straightening at his side, "I will escort the doctor to her desired location and return. Please rest easily."

"Mhmm." Madara can't stay the night, because even being here all day is toeing the line. He's not well liked, but he's well known. With the festival preparations, he can get away with being gone for the day, but any longer than that and it'll get out.

Ito did him a favor, and it would be foolish to repay them with a scandal. A Yamanaka shouldn't be too friendly with an Uchiha, even if they are boss and subordinate. The Uchiha clan has always disliked those who are masters of the mind, and Ito is one of the best.

Their... relationship already puts the both of them in an awkward position. And Madara knows these last few months Ito has been subjected to the suspicion and questions of their clan members.

For Madara. To save him. They're a useful ally, it would be foolish to stay and cause problems.

So he goes.

"Go quickly and come back," he says, and walks away from Ito's house under his own power.

His body aches and his chest is throbbing, but he can breath deeply and fully. He's cured. Tomorrow he'll be able to start rehabilitating his body, and begin to regain the power he's lost. Be able to stand at the peak as he did before.

He looks back at the soft, warm light coming from the house, then looks forward at the peak of the Hokage's tower in the distance. There's an indescribable emotion in his heart.

Tomorrow.

The festival preparations are in full swing with every shinobi, merchant and civilian working with excitement and anticipation. Hashirama more than anyone is running between the Hokage's tower, his home and the village. The Founding Festival is only a few days away, and each day Hashirama has another new idea that must be implemented.

It's a blessing that Hashirama is so busy that he has no time to bother with Madara. There's space to breath, to sleep a full night and wake up in the morning with no one knocking at his office door begging for a spar.

The next few days are spent testing his range of motion, and how badly his body was ravaged. Sato had managed to heal the worst of his injuries, but the surgery scars ache with a bone deep pain.

The first time he attempts his signature Great Fireball Jutsu, he hacks out a puff of smoke and can't breath through the agony of his scorched throat and lungs. _Useless_, worse than a ten year old child!

How can he be reconciled with this? With being weak in a world where the weak are consumed. He _can't_, it's unbearable.

Power, he _needs _it.

So as the preparation for the Founding Festival comes to an end, Madara spends every hour he can in his remote training grounds tempering himself yet again. He doesn't want to think about anything, not the way he feels numb and broken, not his weak body, and certainly not Hashirama. Training is barely enough to keep himself distracted.

The next day will be better, he thinks. Tomorrow.

He keeps thinking that for days, until a message runner comes to his office door with orders that Hashirama wants to see him in his office.

"Very well," he says, and finishes the mission report he's reviewing.

The walk to Hashirama's office is shorter than he'd like, and the office door is already ajar when he arrives. The low murmur of voices comes from the room. Madara frowns, how careless.

"The doors open," he says, pushing it open the rest of the way and stepping inside. Hashirama and his brother are sitting in the circle of chairs and couches, pouring over a stack of scrolls on the table.

"Ma-chan!" Hashirama cries, leaping up from his chair. He looks excited, a smile lightening up his face. It's the first time Madara's seen Hashirama closely since the surgery. Madara's been avoiding him.

He pauses, waiting for his chest to tighten, or his heart to leap as he remembered it used to. But he breathes easy, and his heart beats steady.

Ah, he's never been this calm in front of Hashirama, not even when they were boys. How strange.

"What are you doing?" he asks, sweeping his gaze over the papers. Hashirama groans and drags him by the arm to the couch. They sit next to each other, close enough that Madara can feel his heat through their clothes.

"Ugh," Hashirama groans, "Tobi's got me writing what I'll say at the opening of the festival. Save me from speeches! All the words are swimming on the page." He gives a deep sigh, and begrudgingly picks up a crumpled stack of scrolls filled with Hashirama's particular chicken scrawl. Tobirama ignores the whole event as he reclines in his arm chair with a mission scroll.

"Ma-chan, help," Hashirama begs, "which one do you think is the best?" The other man shoves a handful of scrolls into Madara's hands, and keeps a few unfinished ones in his own hands to sort through.

Madara feels like he's moving through molasses, this conversation is unsettling. How does he talk to Hashirama? What does he say, what does he do?

He doesn't know anymore.

To distract himself, he reads through several scrolls, deciphering Hashirama's illegible scratches with judicial use of experience and imagination. They're all similar, idealistic nonsense and platitudes about the future. None of them are what Hashirama should say, but that's a battle better not fought.

"This one," he says after a few minutes of quiet reading. It's obviously been heavily edited by the Senju bastard, but it's more grounded than anything Hashirama's written on his own.

Hashirama glances at it and grumbles beneath his breath, "You and my brother are so boring."

Madara swallows down the vitriol he wants to say after being compared to that bastard Tobirama. This isn't the time or the place. This is that bastard's seat of power after all.

"Better to be boring than start conflict between the clans and the Hokage's office," Tobirama says dryly.

"Then I'll go with this one," Hashirama says, rolling up the scroll and slipping it into his sleeve, "Now let's talk about our schedule for the festival."

Tobirama taps another scroll that has a list of activities and sighs. "There's nothing to say. Brother will enter first with the two of us at your side. You'll call for attention, give the speech, smile, leave. Go out and attend the festivities. Go home to your wife and child." The scroll is far more detailed than that, but that's Hashirama's business.

"But I wanted to let you both speak," Hashirama complains.

"The citizens don't care about either of us, Hokage-sama. Also the less time we're exposed in the open the better. We've had more assassination attempts in the past year than the entirety of your time as the Senju head. Let's not give our enemies any bright ideas." Tobirama glances out the window down at the open square before the Hokage's tower. There is a wooden construct newly finished at the base of the tower, a podium where the speech will take place.

Hashirama laughs and reaches over to slug his brother on the shoulder. "No, our Tobi is the one with bright ideas. Alright we'll do it your way, is that okay with you, Ma-chan?"

What does it matter if he says no at this point? They've already decided without him.

"Mn," he grunts.

Ah, how tiring.

The festival is a large security risk with merchants, outsiders and even a retinue from the capital coming to see the budding new city. Madara has no doubts that spies from clans across the elemental countries will attempt to sneak their way inside. Hashirama and Mito have spent the last few weeks reinforcing the city walls with seals and growing a maze of greenery around the village. There are two checkpoints that visitors must pass through to even reach the village walls in an attempt to prevent assassination attempts.

Soon, they'll see if the precautions are thorough enough.

The power balance between countries is currently in turmoil with the founding of Konohagakure setting a precedent for others. Just last week, Madara received confirmation that Earth Country has quietly created their own shinobi village called Iwagakure. From the reports it's already eight clans strong and growing.

Konoha only has ten major clans in the village after years of laying foundations through trade and good will actions, yet the clans of the Land of Stone are unifying within months. The Hokage's council are anticipating an outbreak of infighting between clans and the village of Iwagakure to collapse.

Madara doesn't entertain such wishful thinking. Konoha is the first shinobi village, but the Country Lords will be eager to regain the status quo by encouraging the creation of their own.

Iwagakure is only the beginning.

Madara gazes at Hashirama's bright, energetic eyes, and Tobirama's subdued amusement. He thinks of Hashirama's speech, filled with delusions and lies.

Why can't they see?

Battle, war. It's inevitable.

Peace is only a foolish dream. The two of them were just children, sick of senseless death, of watching their brother's die in the name of a grudge neither side remembers. But senseless or not, humans are violent creatures. Smart enough to commit evil, and stupid enough to be selfish.

If only everyone believed in peace, if only there was some way to prevent war.

When all people are united under one common idea, only then will there be true peace.

Madara looks at Hashirama who is the figurehead of a new century of advancement. The man whose charisma and personality bind dozens of clans together for one common cause.

But even Hashirama cannot change the human heart.

"Let's go with that, I'll give the speech while the two of you stand pretty as my arm-candy," Hashirama sighs, leaning back on the couch. They've spent the last few minutes discussing the closing ceremony, which after lots of back before between brother's ends up Tobirama's way. To the shock of no one. During the opening speech, Tobirama and Madara will be nothing more than silent figureheads at the Hokage's back. Which was Tobirama's plan from the beginning..

Hashirama abandons his speech notes and turns to Madara. "You should come over for dinner, Maiya misses you."

"She's barely a month old," Madara says dryly, "she hardly misses a man she met once."

Hashirama's eyebrows crease and his mouth pulls into a pout. "You've been busy this month. As her namesake, make sure to stop by more often." He settles his hand on Madara's shoulder, squeezing it softly. "But I'm glad you're feeling better now. Everyone was worried for you these last few months."

Everyone? Hardly, but Hashirama sees the best in people, and _everyone_ makes sure to show him the face he wants to see.

Hashirama's too idealistic... soft. Unfit to be a military leader.

"Hn," Madara grunts, "I'll visit soon." He didn't want to before, because it hurt too much. Seeing Hashirama and his happy family, how once Mito and Maiya enter Hashirama's eyes, there's no one else. It was miserable.

Now Madara thinks of Hashirama's happy family, of his wife and sweet baby, and doesn't feel anything.

"We have more things to discuss Hokage-sama," Tobirama interrupts, shoving over a stack of scrolls that are taller than a grown man.

Hashirama sighs, but obediently slides a scroll from the pile and gets to work. The work of a village leader never ends.

"I'm going," Madara says. He has nothing to do in the room besides sit and watch the Senju brother's work. And unlike the him of before, he can't live off watching Hashirama breath.

"Are you abandoning me, Ma-chan? Don't leave, it's so boring reading through paperwork and Tobirama doesn't talk to me," Hashirama complains, looking up from his work with a harried face. He hasn't even finished one document.

"Abandoning," Madara confirms. He rises from his seat, and doesn't look back as he leaves. Behind him, Hashirama makes a whimpering noise and sadly calls his name one more time.

Madara closes the door behind him.

He pauses and touches his hand to his heart. How strange to be with Hashirama, to hear him call his name, and not have his heart stuttering and leaping in his chest. To not be choking on flowers, swallowing them back until he feels like he's bursting.

He feels… free.

The first day of the festival dawns bright and warm, with the citizens of the village rising earlier than usual to begin working on the festivities. Madara's uneasy sleep on his office sofa is interrupted by the bustle of the tower's residents rushing to and fro to prepare.

He washes up in the washroom, puts on a new set of clothes and settles his armor and weapons on his body. They're finally starting to fit right, instead of creating an illusion of strength, Madara is beginning to _feel _strong again. He's a proper symbol of power at the Hokage's back.

The way to the Hokage's office is brimming with shinobi going in and out of the office, and Hashirama himself is wiggling around in discomfort on his office chair as a seduction specialist carefully goes over his face with makeup and a brush.

"Why doesn't my brother have to do this?" Hashirama groans, obediently closing his eyes when directed.

"Because no one will be looking at me," Tobirama responds, a stack of paperwork in his hands. It seems like every time Madara sees him, he's doing work.

"It's tough being popular." Hashirama gives a big sigh, and grins at the seduction specialist. A true professional, the specialist doesn't react, but instead plucking some errant eyebrow hairs with full strength. Hashirama winces dramatically and whines, "Gentle, I'm delicate!"

Madara snorts.

"Ahh Madara, I couldn't live without your pithy commentary." Hashirama laughs, and stops acting like a child. He beckons him over with a wave.

"Where's your wife?" Madara asks, coming closer and leaning against the couch.

"With Maiya-chan in another room, she's taking a nap."

Madara opens his mouth-

"Let's go over the speech one more time," Tobirama interrupts. A scroll sails through the air, and Hashirama catches it even as it unrolls and thumps onto his lap. The kanji is smooth and elegant, definitely Tobirama's, because Hashirama has the worst calligraphy skills. Even Mito who has the patience of a goddess for her husband eventually gave up and pronounced him unteachable.

Hashirama reads it slowly as the specialist finishes his eyebrows and packs up their supplies.

"Outside this tower, there are thousands of people waiting to see you. Memorise it," Tobirama orders.

There's only an hour left until the opening ceremony, and the village's shinobi have spent hours refining and checking the security of the square. People have been filling up the square to get the best seats since early in the morning.

This speech must go perfectly, or the consequences will be disastrous for the image of their newborn village.

Hashirama reads through the speech, mouth moving along to the words. Madara will bet his entire fortune that half way through Tobirama's carefully worded speech, Hashirama is going to go off on a tangent and end on a completely unrelated note.

But somehow all the people will still love him.

There's a knock on the open door as a messenger shinobi, a Nara by the looks of her, leans against the door like she has no bones in her body. "Hokage-sama, it's time," she drawls. Naras.

"Let's go," Hashirama says softly. He rises from his seat, and clenches the scroll between his hands until it crumples.

"You will do well," Tobirama says, resting his hand on Hashirama's shoulder. The scroll with the speech is still gripped tightly between Hashirama's fist.

"To a new era," Hashirama whispers. The wrinkled scroll is set aside and the three of them settle into formation as they walk out of the office and down the stairs of the Hokage's tower.

The podium was built to tower over the open area before the Hokage's building so that the symbol of their village will tower behind them. Even more impressively, the recently completed carving of Hashirama's face will be unveiled right after the speech.

Grandiose, but so were many Senju plans.

As they exit the Hokage's tower, all Madara can see and hear are the cheers of the crowd. The square is packed to the brim with people pressed against each other so tightly that it looks like the crowd is breathing.

Hashirama takes the stage, Tobirama and himself just behind him.

As they ascend the podium, the sound dims but the noise of the crowd outside the sealing barrier is still deafening. But at least he can hear himself think.

The sunlight is beating down directly on top of them. Madara envies Hashirama his hat, which has a brim wide enough to keep the sun from blinding him.

The three of them stand before the sea of people, Hashirama in the center while Tobirama and Madara flank him. His hokage robes snap behind him as the wind picks up, and his hair sways in the wind.

The crowd descends into silence, gazing up at them, at _Hashirama_, with eyes full of worship.

Sunlight shines down on the square, and blankets the mountain and the Hokage's tower. Hashirama is standing in a pool of light, his eyes shining brilliantly as the people gaze up at him.

"Welcome citizens!" Hashirama's words echoed over the crowd, reverberating like the voice of some great god.

A great roar echoes through the streets as the citizens cheer in approval, a fanatic frenzy overcoming them as they press forward against the guard railings protecting the podium. Several shinobi on guard duty rush to keep the line and reinforce the temporary barrier seal.

The crowd pushes against them like the sea, a mass of bodies filled with a contagious euphoria that's caught hold of everyone. Several people have already been pulled underneath the current, with the people behind them trampling over the prone bodies in their haste to push forward. To get closer to their Hokage.

Stand-by shinobi and medic-nin push into the crowd to pull the injured out.

Already the planned speech has gone horribly off course, with 'innocents' injured and chaos in the crowd. If Hashirama doesn't take this moment to placate the masses and ask for peace and calm, it'll get out of hand. But once Hashirama has free reign to speak, he'll take a mile when given an inch.

The carefully planned speech is ruined. From the corner of his eyes, Madara sees Tobirama close his eyes for a long moment.

"Citizens, please," Hashirama calls out, his voice echoing over the square. "Calm yourself, we are here. We will protect and serve you."

How crafty. He didn't use the royal we, but the communal we. What mindgames. The Hokage is the lord of the village, a military leader. No matter how Hashirama wants to represent it, his power is absolute. What 'we the people'? Protect and serve, ha.

Already traitors and dissenters are being interrogated beneath the very ground the citizens are standing upon. If any of them have interests that oppose Konoha's, they will find themselves buried beneath the earth as well. No matter his ideals, Hashirama is no fool, and his brother has his own convictions. Tobirama is a more vicious and ruthless man than Hashirama acknowledges. What matters is results. And no one gets results from enemy spies by asking nicely. But no matter how well done the preliminary scouting, there are a few that _are _innocent. And they won't leave that dungeon without a mindwipe.

What hypocrisy.

The civilians calm down slowly as the shinobi guards keep them in check. Madara lowers his eyelids and flickers on his sharingan covertly.

**(sweet little sheep in their comfortable cages surrounded by wolves disguised as shepards) **Izuna sneers.

A thin flicker of genjutsu is now covering the crowd, weaving through the civilians' minds and calming them. Madara grimaces, indeed, what little lambs corralled together to listen to wolves preaching about love and peace.

Hashirama is in good form, his body and voice filled with conviction and belief in his own dogma. He's a charismatic speaker, and a handsome man. It's a powerful (and dangerous) combination. Everyone, from shinobis to civilians, are ensnared in his voice, in the strength of his conviction.

A new world, a world without warring clans, a world where children won't be sent to their deaths, a world where shinobi and civilians can exist in harmony, supporting each other for a better future.

Haha.

"Together, we will bring forth a future where all people will live in security, where all people will live without fear, where all people are proud citizens of Konoha! With the Will of Fire burning in our hearts, with the Will of Fire to protect our village, with the Will of Fire to defend our homeland! For our village, for Konoha. Say it with me!" Hashirama roars, spreading his hands before him as if to envelop the whole of the world in his grasp.

"FOR OUR VILLAGE, FOR KONOHA!" Everyone screams, raising their arms into the sky.

As if in response, the sun breaks through the drifting clouds and rays of light shine down on the podium and the village square. Hashirama looks up into the sky, and closes his eyes, his face illuminated by the light.

Shining like a god.

Applause reverberates through the streets, thundering through the air like the roar of some great beast.

He looks at Hashirama, at the man's broad grin, the crinkles around his velvet brown eyes as he laughs, and thinks experimentally. _I love him_. It's easy to think, because he's thought it everyday for months, for _years_. A road worn down by decades of travel, from the moment they met on that river bank.

Except he feels nothing. Nothing at all.

The citizens, the shinobi, they love him. The way any man loves a great and wise leader, with all their heart, and idealization. That's not the way Madara loved him, not before. And it's not the way he feels about him now.

He touches his chest where the surgery scar still aches days later. It's the one bright point in his body, the only place he feels anything at all. The rest of him is still numb, foreign and disconnected like his body is someone else's.

"Ma-chan?" Hashirama asks softly. The entire village cheers behind him.

Madara looks at him, at the man who defined the last two decades of his life, and wants to feel something, _anything_.

But all he sees is a stranger.


End file.
